Is theatre a dying art?

Question

Is live entertainment destine to become absolute? Is it going to be replace by multi-million dollar movies.? Have our generation destroyed the culture and experience of live theatre for our children because it's just so much easier and cheaper to go see a movie? Have you ever had the opportunity to experience true professional theatre? if not, tell me why?

Answer 1

Doubtful!

Live performance has been around for eons, and likely will be for eons more.

Certainly there are those who enjoy the effects, etc. that film provides. Admittedly I'm one of them,,, But you can never have a more personal, intimate, deeply moving experience in the genre, than live performance theater.

There are no "CUT",,, "Action",,, "Take 27" chances in Live performance theater, once the first curtain goes up, and it Humanizes the characters, and totally involves any truly interested audience.

Sadly the ARTS are so under supported, while films make,,, and cost millions,,, even low rated ones. That isn't to say that all films are best disregarded, it's just my opinion of one who has been CLOSE to theater for a long time, enjoyably.

Steven Wolf

Answer 2

No, no, no! You must be an actor or worse, a dancer, which would give anyone a jaundiced view. Perish it! Get thee to a publication called the Irish Times daily newspaper and flip to the entertainment section, which is not merely alive but robust with quite a number of excellent and even a few contemporary plays. Ralph Fiennes was there not long ago in a new Brian Friel production and before that they held a Beckett centenary celebration. And of course have a look at the New Yorker. Ignore the Webber and other similarly pop bunk as the magazine mostly does in favor of the newer listings. There is currently a black woman performance artist who is holding the critics spellbound. Even better, even if the play does not interest you, the reviews are so well written in that publication that your world will appear once again rose colored. Example: John Lahr on Chorus Line this month. It's a third-rate show with fourth-rate music and I've sat through it three times already but Lahr nearly made me want to see it again. London, too, still enjoys wonderful theatre. Just this summer, Derek Jacobi played John Mortimer's blind father in Voyage Round My Father, which I would have killed to see. They even hold plays in pubs there, which is interesting if uncomfortable. But to answer your question most fully, consider tha at all of these venues, disappointed theatre-goers are frequently greeted with the sign, Performance Sold Out.

Answer 3

I don't think it's a dying art. This was something that was worried about when motion pictures appeared, but it survived. And it survived telivision as well.

As long as there are good stage presentations, and as long as there are people willing to spend the money for the experience, there will be theatre.

It is a unique experience seeing a stage show first hand, and you come away with a deep respect for all that goes into it. It is an experience distinct and different from other mediums.

I think for those reasons, theatre will be here for a while (in downtown Chicago, it had really explode the last few years)

Answer 4

You answered your own question when you described other forms of entertainment as "easier and cheaper."

Theatre will survive because of the rewards that each audience member reaps from making him or herself available to the experience. It's NOT easy, and it's not supposed to be. It's an immediate interaction between play and spectator, and it requires an EFFORT on the part of the audience that films only rarely do.

Anyone who has ever experienced a quality live production knows that it's DIFFERENT from other forms of entertainment. The mistake that many people make is when they assume that it's an "either-or" thing, whether people are going to attend live theatre OR movies OR.....(fill in the blank). I've never believed that. The live theatre experience is irreplaceable.

Answer 5

Honestly, I think it is....
don't get me wrong, I love theatre, especially when the lights come up for the curtain call, and you know it was a hit.

but most of my teenage peers are lazy in the intellectual sense. Movies are dubbed the Idiots medium because the storyline is practically handed to you on a silver platter. With theatre you have to use your imagination.

One last thing..
God help us all if I'm right!

Answer 6

it really is like someone who's frightened of blood desirous to develop right into a general practitioner. I actually were a professional actor for 26 years. I actually were frightened of forgetting my strains; yet i'd be as afraid in the front of an target audience of one million as a million,000. in case you adore the theatre as you assert, then be a member of the target audience. you're needed there better than you're on degree. Edit - I bear in mind attending a convention on the college of Wisconsin many years in the past and previously I grew to develop into professional. The galleried lecture hall became thoroughly packed with countless hundred human beings. I sat up contained in the "gods." A small elderly guy shuffled to the rostrum, appeared round at everybody and suggested "you probable imagine that i'm a Christian thrown to you lions. properly, so a techniques as i'm worried, you're the Christians and that i'm the lion." He went on to provide a great lecture. in case you won't be able to locate that interior you, then there is not any element in even thinking turning right into a performer. It is going with the territory.

Answer 7

Lord, please do not let the arts die! Have I ever had the experience of going to a play done by professionals? Technically, no. I go to school with some that may or may not eventually become professionals in theatre in some part or another. (and yes, I'm even in the Drama Club. :) ) Unless something earth-shattering happens to us and we decide to do away with it, the theatre will evolve (or devolve, if you think so), but it must never die.

Answer 8

In my view, live performing arts (theater) and intellectuality go hand in hand. And as long as intellectuality is further and further diminishing, especially in the USA, so will the live stage theater.

The capitalistic jungle, in which we live today, does not allow fruition of intellectuality and therefore of the live performing arts.

In other words, it is far easier for the voracious corporate America to brainwash the uninformed masses than to convince the intellectual minority.

Typically, money is foolishly squandered by the uninformed masses and that’s how the many are controlled and exploited by the few corporate sharks.
NDS

Answer 9

Newspapers have become the new "theatre" competeing for readership by dramatising every nuance in a scoop. but they are dead trees... the real theater was a wonderful experience. I saw "midsummer nights dream" at the mark taper forum when i was in high school.

Answer 10

Theater is not a dying art. Of course, I just left a perfomance of a class of 100 fifth graders tonight. I imagine my vision is skewed, but I am sure that if you ask any of them, they would not feel that the art is dead either.

If you don't like that people are watching movies and tv, buy some tickets yourself.