Itp Final

Front 1

Students of the Pear Tree

Back 1

-one of the world's first performance schools (China)

Front 2

Kuan Han-Ch'ing

Back 2

-playwright, poet
-father of Chinese drama
-18 of his plays still exist

Front 3

Why were tea houses important?

Back 3

-first spaces that were purpose built for performance
-also had rooms for gambling and other vices

Front 4

Mao Ze Dong

Back 4

-communist leader in China who stamped down art
-communism makes just one type of theatre, a national theatre
-He represents a flattening of Chinese theatre

Front 5

Peking Opera Stock Characters

Back 5

-old man
-young man
-warrior man
-old woman
-warrior woman
-vivacious woman
-gentle, quiet woman

Front 6

How was Peking Opera like Greek theatre?

Back 6

-audience already knew the stories
-costumes would indicate characters (so that you know which stock character is being presented)

Front 7

French theatre architecture

Back 7

-Before developments, they were made from tennis courts
-After developments, there was onstage seating so that aristocracy could be seen
-After developments, the boxes in the theatre were not directed toward the stage
-prompt box (precursor to stage manager), where someone would give actors their lines
-sunk in the middle of the stage

Front 8

French theatre lighting

Back 8

-lit by chandeliers
-stage and audience lit the exact same
-footlights were heavily used

Front 9

Salle de Machine

Back 9

-largest theatre in Europe
-had a glory that could fly the entire royal family
-acoustics were so bad that it was rarely used

Front 10

Versailles

Back 10

-theatre is performed both outdoors and inside
-consolidates French theatre into one place
-Moliere helps design the theatres @ Versailles
-he takes seating OFF of the stage

Front 11

Opera (in general)

Back 11

-has its origins in Greek theatre
-very popular during Enlightenment Period in Europe
-Opera houses are all very ornate - they are the royalty showing off their money

Front 12

La Scala

Back 12

-Milan
-one of the most important opera houses in Europe
-Verdi put on his operas there

Front 13

Teatro Fenice

Back 13

-Venice
-burned and rebuilt a lot, as the name suggests

Front 14

Realism

Back 14

-Theatre should reflect the truth of the times
-stop telling the widely known tales of Greek times

Front 15

Aristotelian Unites

Back 15

-Action: there should be one major plot and one or no subplots
-Place: there should be one physical setting
-time: the play takes place over a realistic period of time

Front 16

The Well-Made Play

Back 16

-derived from the Unities
-based on the idea that:
-the best play you can write is one motivated by a secret that the audience knows but that the characters don't
-Shakespeare utilizes this

Front 17

Philip de Loutherberg

Back 17

-believed that you should be able to control lighting on stage
-made the Eidophosikon
-believed that the audience should not be lit the same as the stage (because lighting should reflect what is happening on the stage, not the Theatrical Present)

Front 18

Eidophosikon

Back 18

-Loutherberg's model stage at his home where he could experiment with lighting
-became a puppet theatre that people would actually come to spectate

Front 19

Difference between Realism and Naturalism

Back 19

-Realism: broad idea that plays should reflect the truth (the Well-Made Play)

-Naturalism: belief that no one has control over their lives and no one is responsible for what happens to them
-Cultural Darwinism: individuals can't be responsible for their actions (blame is placed on society) and that humanity is another element that can be studied in the sciences

Front 20

Meiningen Players

Back 20

-Started by the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
-a company of actors that believe in life-like acting
-get rid of ceiling paintings in theatres (space should reflect the performance)
-they inspired Stanislavski's naturalistic acting method

Front 21

Romanticism

Back 21

-An idea that copies the structure of Shakespeare's ethics
-rather than just believable characters, believable atmospheres needed to be presented
-believed in showing the grotesque as well as the beautiful
-the hero of the romantic play should be a social outcast with a quest for truth

Front 22

Victor Hugo's Hernanis

Back 22

-an important play in Romanticism
-rejected the verse form; used vernacular
-showed death on stage (no more Ekkyklema)
-caused riots at the premier
-broke away from the Unities

Front 23

Box Set

Back 23

-a box without one wall for the audience to see through
-the audience sits where the 4th wall would be (Andre Antoine)
-used in Realist Theatre
-one single unit

Front 24

Andre Antoine

Back 24

-coined the "4th wall"
-walked around during rehearsals to see where he could best take out a wall

Front 25

Emile Zola

Back 25

-used "slice of life" realism
-used stage as a platform to tell audience what they needed to change in society
-very important in the realism/naturalism movement

Front 26

Stanislavski

Back 26

-founded the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898
-cofounded by Vladimir Danchenko
-based on the technique of the Meiningen Players
-focused on realism in acting (actually BECOMING your character)
-MAT was a source of realism in Moscow when Melodrama was the popular form of drama there

Front 27

Richard Wagner

Back 27

-German opera composer/director
-end of the 19th century, beginning of 20th
-comes up with gesamkunstwerk
-the idea that every element in a production should be unified
-tries to return power to the artist rather than the investors or producers
-builds Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Front 28

Bayreuth Festspielhaus

Back 28

-built by Wagner in 1872
-meant to realize his idea of gesamkunstwerk (unified theatre elements)
-had a fan-shaped auditorium (not horseshoe)
-had continental seating (no seating, bad for fires)
-had no box seats
-had a "mystic gulf" (a platform to extend the stage and let the audience enter the world of the show)
-house lights were extinguished
-had a CONCEALED orchestra pit

Front 29

Early American Theatre Architecture

Back 29

-based on the Georgian playhouse:
-flat, 2D scenery
-footlights
-had flipper seats that would turn into aisles
-wing and border scenery

Front 30

Argand Lamp

Back 30

-you can change the flow of oxygen
-finally you can work with intensity and color

Front 31

Lime light

Back 31

-a block of lime that would glow when heated
-dangerous because the block could explode

Front 32

Carbon-Arc Light

Back 32

-two conductors shoot electricity between them
-VERY BRIGHT, turns into the spotlight
-needs to be constantly readjusted
-still used today
-allowed lighting designers to use different lighting effects

Front 33

Lightbulb invented by which two people?

Back 33

Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison (independently)

Front 34

Tracker Wire Control System

Back 34

-levers pull wires that can raise and lower canisters over lights
-for the first time you can use BLACKOUTS

Front 35

Cruciform Stage Design

Back 35

-used for faster scene changes
-four different set stages could slide into view of the audience
-shaped like a cross
-became standard for modern Opera

Front 36

Asphelia Staging System

Back 36

-used hydraulic lifts to create different levels on the stage
-used for faster scene changes

Front 37

Astor Place Riot

Back 37

-William Macready (British) was portraying Macbeth at the Astor Place Opera House
-Edwin Forrest (American) decided to compete and portray Macbeth at the Bowery Theatre
-Forrest gets his fans to riot outside of the Opera House
-Macready represents British aristocracy
-10,000 people rioted - 23 people died
-highlighted tension between classes

Front 38

Elements of a minstrel show

Back 38

-Minstrel Line: Tambo and Bones (musicians) banter back and forth with an interlocutor between them
-The Olio: a variety show (flamethrowing, singing, dancing). Not in blackface because white performers wanted credit for their talents.
-One-act musical: performed in blackface, performers would put on skits

Front 39

Ira Aldridge

Back 39

-first African-American actor on a British stage
-played Othello
-proponent for abolition

Front 40

W.E.B. DuBois

Back 40

-African-American theatre needed to be:

-ABOUT African-Americans
-WRITTEN BY AAs
-FOR AAs
-NEAR AAs (accessibility)

Front 41

Paul Robeson

Back 41

-went to Princeton, Columbia Law
-dropped out due to racism
-Plays lead roles in O'Neill plays
-One of the first black performers to play serious roles
-plays Othello on Broadway for the longest period of time up to that point
-moves to Europe after suspected communism
-gets Electro-Shock Therapy

Front 42

Lorraine Hansberry

Back 42

-writes Raisin in the Sun
-gets underwhelming reviews, but audiences love it
-has universal importance, not just for AAs
-only published one other play

Front 43

Difference between Vaudeville in North and South

Back 43

-In North, it is WHITE entertainment
-In South, it is BLACK entertainment
-In the South, you could buy books of racist jokes to perform on the stage
-In the South, it becomes extremely suggestive (double entendres)
-TOBA in the South

Front 44

TOBA

Back 44

-Theatre Owners Booking Association
-a vaudeville circuit in the South that sponsored racist humor

Front 45

Russian Constructivism

Back 45

-popular style in Russian art
-bold, geometric blocks of color
-started by VLADIMIR TATLIN

Front 46

Living Theatre

Back 46

-led the post-WW2 avant-garde movement in America
-used as a forum for political messages (it was started as a nonviolent protest group)
-tried to meld the world of the audience with that of the performers
-they weren't considered liberal enough, so they lost their audience

Front 47

Peter Brook

Back 47

-starts as a commercial theatre director
-founds the International Center for Theater Research
-goes to Africa to share European theatre
-writes "The Empty Space"
-The Deadly Theatre: the audience can easily follow, dull, tame doesn't inspire the audience
-The Holy Theatre: tries to restore the sense of ritual in theatre, the audience knows what they're in for, so they are participants in Holy theatre
-The Rough Theatre: not sophisticated, primal interaction with the show
-Immediate theatre: told the audience that it was responsible for changing the world

Front 48

Richard Schechner

Back 48

-founds the idea of theatre studies
-starts "Happenings"
-hipsters would come and sing, dance, say poetry (everybody was both spectator and performer)
-starts "environmental theatre"
-audience and performer shared the same space
-the audience are both scene watchers and scene makers

Front 49

Environmental Theatre

Back 49

-started by Richard Schechner
1) combines happenings with traditional theatre
2) event takes place in a transformed or "found" place
3) focus is flexible and variable
4)all production elements speak their own language
5) text is NOT the objective, there might not even be text at all

Front 50

Vsevelod Meyerhold

Back 50

-hired by Stanislavski @ MAT to develop an avant-garde wing
-Stanislavski fires him because he doesn't like the idea of the director controlling everything
-becomes very important in the avant-garde community
-develops the idea of "bio-mechanics"
-directs Hedda Gabler (each character wore a specific color)
-directs Spring Awakening (all set pieces on stage at once, simultaneous staging)
-directs Don Juan (removed curtain/footlights, moved stage into the audience)

Front 51

Bio-Mechanics

Back 51

-developed by Vsevelod Meyerhold
-regularized movements for the actor
-acting training should include ballet, gymnastics, circus training
-he believed this would replace Stanislavski's emotion based acting

Front 52

Bertolt Brecht

Back 52

-Post-WW2, he is in Berlin trying to make sense of the tragedies of the past war
-"Alienation" (misnomer): confuses the audience about their present society and so makes them believe what he is putting on stage

1) he tries to make the audience sufficiently unfamiliar so they will ask questions
2) he leaves the technical aspects visible to the spectator
3)rejects naturalistic acting (the actors often comment on their characters during the show)

Front 53

Hippodrome

Back 53

-from 43rd to 44th Sts. and 5th to 6th aves.
-the front of the stage was 60 ft. deep
-the front could be lowered and filled with water
-doesn't get used for 20 yrs
-reopened by Billy Rose with Dumbo and closed down in 1939

Front 54

Why are theatres named "opera houses," "music halls," "museums," etc?

Back 54

Because "theatre" has negative connotations for religious people

Front 55

David Belasco

Back 55

-"Bishop of Broadway"
-peak of American Naturalism on stage
-not the illusion of reality, reality ITSELF
-he would bring actual bars into plays that took place in bars

Front 56

The New Stagecraft

Back 56

-theatre is not just entertainment, it is art
-unification of visual elements
-trust the audience's imagination (simplicity and suggestion)
-evocative lighting for emotive effect
-atmosphere
-poetic realism

Front 57

Robert Edmund Jones

Back 57

-Provincetown playhouse
-a good scene is not a picture, it is a feeling

Front 58

Adolphe Appia

Back 58

-Swiss version of R.E. Jones
-GOT RID OF 2D scenery

Front 59

Edward Gordon Craig

Back 59

-believed in theatre as an independent art form
-theatre was more visual than audio for him

Front 60

African Grove Theatre

Back 60

-run by free blacks and used black actors
-presented shows that everyone knew, mostly Shakespeare

Front 61

Bert Williams

Back 61

-began in minstrelsy but refused to play demeaning roles

Front 62

Anita Bush

Back 62

-starts as dancer with Bert Williams and George Walker but is injured and starts her own company in Harlem
-The Anita Bush Players perform at Lafayette and Lincoln
-They perform white shows with black performers

Front 63

Tony Pastor

Back 63

-wanted "clean and orderly" humor in vaudeville
-wants a more polite version of vaudeville
-eliminates selling of liquor

Front 64

WPA Federal Theater Project

Back 64

-launches different theatre companies (like The Mercury Theatre) to give acting jobs post-depression
-this starts getting African-Americans on Broadway

Front 65

Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones

Back 65

-the first black actor in a lead role
-Done at the Provincetown Playhouse

Front 66

Orson Welles' "Voodoo Macbeth"

Back 66

-set in Caribbean
-uses all black cast
-proved that black actors could be serious, not just entertainers