Can you please recommend me an interesting topic in theater?

Question

It can be a person, a place, or a kind of theater.

Any suggestions?

It's for a paper and it has to answer the main question: How does it affect theater today?

Answer 1

Back in the day many theatres in England were huge fire hazards. You could form a question on that idea. Here are a couple....

How did that affect theatre of today, as far as historical records and plays and such?

...or

We take many precautions in theatre today to prevent fire hazards. What types of precautions, if any, did they take back in the day to prevent fire hazards? Obviously they weren't full proof, but they must have taken some precautions, because of the other theatres going up in smoke.

Answer 2

As a passionate reader I would recommend Jerzy Grotowski. He has only written one book called "The way to a poor theater" hope the translation is ok, a quite easy to read book, relatively short in wich you can find data about his method of training (method inspired by great men like Stanislavski and Antonin Artaud) and interesting ideeas like acting as a spiritual act , theater as a sacred art, the difference between poor theater and rich theater and many other concepts that are used by actors and directors all over the world. Here you can also find references for many other great method founders like Stanislavski or Antonin Artaud. Hope you find it becouse is a very good book as far as I am concerned and one a theater person shouldn't miss!

Answer 3

I would suggest looking at the history of lighting in the theatre, from candles to moving lights, the reason behind many of the theatre fires in London and New York was the lighting, how the phrase "in the limelight" originated, the transition from candle to gas, and gas to electric, the effect that lighting had and continues to play in theatre.

It's a topic that usually gets overlooked when writing about the theatre

Answer 4

How about an experience which could be completely foreign to you as an individual, for example: a blind person, a deaf person, a deaf and blind person, a schizophrenic, ....

There are probably thousands to choose from. I'm always fascinated to read about and/or see people acting about others who do not fit society's definition of "normal". One of my favorite examples of this is the magnificent play "Children of a Lesser God" which brings out a strong clash between Deaf culture and hearing culture, many of which most people in the Hearing world are blissfully unaware of, even as a few are played out on stage.

Answer 5

As a College student and a Actor in training, I would suggest Commedia dell'arte.If it's for a paper this type of theatre would lift any teacher's interest.For a person, Konstantin Stanislavski.He's the father of method acting and his blueprint for training is used in all acting programs.

Answer 6

COMMEDIA DELL'FARTE saved my soul at collage, defiantly worth checking, also

Augusto Boal
invisible theatre

Antonin Artaud's
Theatre of Cruelty

Howard Brenton
left wing play write

Harold Pinter
...how long can a pause be....

Edward Wood
you'll never guess what happens next.

well that she keep you going, if you reed half of them you've done more then most students ever will in a life time, enjoy....

i would like to point out though "Antonin Artaud" is normaly a name that getstossed about from prentenchios w@nkers trying to sound like there important, and they are redical to mentchion his name. in truth he didnt realy contribute much to theatre although sum like to belive he invented it

Answer 7

If you live in Virginia, I strongly recommend the little theater in Alexandria. But the sort of topic completely depends on you!! If you like to be funny, try comedy. If you like to feel "beautifull", try drama.

Answer 8

Commedia de'llarte.

Specific piece "The Servant of Two Masters"

But over all Commedia de'llarte is extremely interesting, I think it would be a good subject to choose.

Answer 9

the west end - london