Savoy Theatre: see Savoy, the.

Royal National Theatre a government-funded repertory company based in London. Although the idea for such a company originated in the 19th cent., the National Theatre was not finally established until 1963, with Laurence Olivier appointed as director. Temporarily housed at first in the Old Vic theater, the company opened with Hamlet in 1963. Peter Hall took over the directorship in 1973, and the National Theatre complex opened in 1976-77 in its new building on the south bank of the Thames. In 1988 the name of the company was changed to the Royal National Theatre, and Richard Eyre took over as director. Eyre was succeeded by Trevor Nunn in 1997 and Nicholas Hytner in 2003. The National Theatre engages many of England's most talented actors, directors, and designers to produce its repertory of classic and modern plays.

National Theatre of Great Britain: see Royal National Theatre.

Group Theatre, organization formed in New York City in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg. Its founders, who had worked earlier with the Provincetown Players, wished to revive and redefine American theater by establishing a permanent company to present contemporary plays of social significance and by developing the theaterical arts, in particular, that of acting. Under Strasberg's tutelage, the actors explored the interior techniques based on Stanislavsky's teachings that evolved into the American Method style of acting. Although never financially secure, the group was recognized as a vital theatrical force. It was at its height between 1935 and 1937, when it produced Awake and Sing, Waiting for Lefty, and Golden Boy, all by Clifford Odets. In 1937, Clurman became sole director. Although the group disbanded in 1941, its influence was great; many of its members became prominent actors, teachers, and directors.

Globe Theatre, London playhouse, built in 1598, where most of Shakespeare's plays were first presented. It burned in 1613, was rebuilt in 1614, and was destroyed by the Puritans in 1644. A working replica opened in 1997.

Ford's Theatre National Historic Site: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

Federal Theatre (1935-39), branch of the Work Projects Administration designed to provide employment for actors, directors, writers, and scene designers. As well as providing a nationwide audience with inexpensive, high-quality productions, it gave impetus to experimental theaters, such as the Group Theatre, the Mercury Theatre of Orson Welles, the topical "Living Newspaper" (dramatizations of news stories), and the music-dramas of Marc Blitzstein.

Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first black classical ballet company. The group was founded in Harlem, New York City, by Arthur Mitchell, then of the New York City Ballet, the first black principal dancer of a classical company of international standing. The company began as a school for 30 students in the summer of 1968. Classes were conducted with the doors open so that passersby could watch the students at the barre; at the end of the summer the school had 400 students. Mitchell began taking his students on lecture-demonstration tours in 1969, and by 1970 had a professional company of 20 ready for their debut at the 1971 festival at Spoleto, Italy. After two European tours and three national tours, the company had its successful first full season in New York City in 1974. It is noted for graceful and vigorous performances of works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Mitchell. In 1981, it was the first black ballet company to have a season at Covent Garden, London, and in 1982 the company had its first season at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York City. Its dancers have included Stephanie Baxter, Virginia Johnson, Eddie Shellman, Mel Tomlinson, Donald Williams, and Alicia Graf. Economic difficulties resulted in a strike (1997), subsequent financial belt-tightening, and temporary shutdowns of the school (2004) and company (2004-).

American Ballet Theatre, one of the foremost international dance companies of the 20th cent. It was founded in 1937 as the Mordkin Ballet and reorganized as the Ballet Theatre in 1940 under the direction of Lucia Chase and Rich Pleasant. It became the American Ballet Theatre in 1956. Its repertoire has included newly staged classical ballets and innovative modern dance works, many concerned with specifically American themes. Most of the company's seasons have been presented in New York City, but it has also toured throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. In 1960 it was the first U.S. ballet company to dance in the Soviet Union.

George Balanchine, Adolph Bolm, Michel Fokine, Léonide Massine, and Bronislava Nijinska staged works for the company, as did the British choreographer Antony Tudor, who was introduced to the American public with such works as Pillar of Fire (1942) and Romeo and Juliet (1943). Agnes de Mille staged nearly all of her dance works for the company, including Fall River Legend (1948) and The Harvest According (1952). Jerome Robbins's Fancy Free (1944) and Michael Kidd's On Stage (1945) were created for the company, as were Alvin Ailey's The River (1970) and Twyla Tharp's Push Comes to Shove (1976). Dancers who gained fame or reached their peak with the American Ballet Theatre include Alicia Alonso, Alicia Markova, Erik Bruhn, Nora Kaye, and Natalia Makarova. Mikhail Baryshnikov was artistic director of the company from 1980 to 1989 and was followed in that position by Jane Hermann (1989-92) and Kevin McKenzie (1992-).

Abbey Theatre, Irish theatrical company devoted primarily to indigenous drama. W. B. Yeats was a leader in founding (1902) the Irish National Theatre Society with Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, and A. E. (George Russell) contributing their talents as directors and dramatists. In 1904, Annie Horniman gave them a subsidy and the free use of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The theater was bought for them by public subscription in 1910. Among dramatists whose works the Abbey Theatre first presented are Padraic Colum, Lennox Robinson, Sean O'Casey, and Paul Vincent Carroll. The theater is now in a new building constructed in 1966. In close association with Irish dramatists, the Abbey also has been an important instrument in the revival of Irish drama that began in the 1960s.

or arena stage

Theatre in which the stage is located in the centre of the auditorium with the audience seated on all sides. The form evolved from Greek theatre and was used in medieval times. From the 17th century the proscenium stage limited audience seating to the area directly in front of the stage. In the 1930s, plays at Moscow's Realistic Theatre were produced in the round and the arena stage began to gain favour in Europe and the U.S. Its advantages are its informality and the rapport it creates between audience and actors, but it requires actors to turn constantly to address new sections of the audience.

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Live performance of dramatic actions in order to tell a story or create a spectacle. The word derives from the Greek theatron (“place of seeing”). Theatre is one of the oldest and most important art forms in cultures worldwide. While the script is the basic element of theatrical performance, it also relies in varying degrees on acting, singing, and dancing, as well as on technical aspects of production (see stagecraft). Theatre is thought to have had its earliest origins in religious ritual; it often enacts myths or stories central to the belief structure of a culture or creates comedy through travesty of such narratives. In Western civilization, theatre began in ancient Greece and was adapted in Roman times; it was revived in the medieval liturgical dramas and flourished in the Renaissance with the Italian commedia dell'arte and in the 17th–18th century with established companies such as the Comédie-Française. Varying theatrical forms may evolve to suit the tastes of different audiences (e.g., in Japan, the kabuki of the townspeople and the Noh theatre of the court). In Europe and the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries, theatre was a major source of entertainment for all social classes, with forms ranging from burlesque shows and vaudeville to serious dramas performed in the style of the Moscow Art Theatre. Though the musicals of Broadway and the farces of London's West End retain their popular appeal, the rise of television and movies has eroded audiences for live theatre and has tended to limit its spectators to an educated elite. Seealso little theatre.

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Production of several different plays in a single season by a resident acting company. The plays chosen may be classic works by famous dramatists or new works by emerging playwrights, and the companies that perform them often serve as a training ground for young actors. In Britain the practice, intended to make high-quality theatre available throughout the country, began in the early 20th century. Repertory companies, or stock companies, originally presented a different play each night of the week while preparing and rehearsing new plays. The system evolved to the current practice of presenting a series of short, continuous runs of each play.

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Written, printed, or other visual representation of music. There are two basic approaches to notating music. Tablature (such as guitar chord diagrams) depicts the actions a performer is to take (in particular, showing where to put the fingers to produce a given sound). Symbolic notation describes the sounds themselves and includes methods that vary from assigning pitches different letters of the alphabet to representing a given combination of notes by a graphic sign. The Western notation system combines rhythmic notation (the appearance of a note indicates its duration) with pitch notation (the line or space on a staff where a note is placed indicates its pitch). Thus, a single symbol shows both pitch and duration, and a string of these symbols notates both melody and rhythm.

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or musical comedy

Theatrical production that is characteristically sentimental and amusing in nature, having a simple but distinctive plot and offering music, dancing, and dialogue. Its roots can be traced to 18th- and 19th-century genres such as ballad opera, singspiel, and opéra comique. The Black Crook (1866), often called the first musical comedy, attracted patrons of opera and serious drama as well as those of burlesque shows. European composers such as Sigmund Romberg brought to the U.S. a form of operetta that was the generic source for musical comedy. George M. Cohan ushered in the genre's heyday, and in the 1920s and '30s it entered its richest period with the works of Jerome Kern, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein. Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat (1927) was perhaps the first musical to employ music thoroughly integrated with the narrative. The genre flourished in the 1950s with works by composers such as Leonard Bernstein, but it began to decline in the late 1960s, by which time musicals had begun to diverge in many different directions, incorporating elements such as rock music, operatic styling, extravagant lighting and staging, social comment, nostalgia, and pure spectacle. Later notable musical composers included Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

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Popular entertainment that featured successive acts by singers, comedians, dancers, and actors. The form derived from the taproom concerts given in city taverns in England in the 18th–19th centuries. To meet the demand for entertainment for the working class, tavern owners often annexed nearby buildings as music halls, where drinking and smoking were permitted. The originator of the English music hall as such was Charles Morton, who built Morton's Canterbury Hall (1852) and Oxford Hall (1861) in London. Leading performers included Lillie Langtry, Harry Lauder (1870–1950), and Gracie Fields. Music halls evolved into larger, more respectable variety theatres, such as London's Hippodrome and the Coliseum. Variety acts combined music, comedy acts, and one-act plays and featured celebrities such as Sarah Bernhardt and Herbert Tree. Seealso vaudeville.

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Movement in U.S. theatre to free dramatic forms and methods of production from the limitations of the large commercial theatres by establishing small experimental centres of drama. Young dramatists, stage designers, and actors influenced by the vital European theatre of the late 19th century, especially by the theories of Max Reinhardt, established community playhouses such as the Little Theatre, New York City (1912), the Little Theatre, Chicago (1912), and the Toy Theatre, Boston (1912). A few became important commercial producers; the Washington Square Players (1915), for example, later became the Theatre Guild (1918). Playwrights such as Eugene O'Neill, George S. Kaufman, and Maxwell Anderson found their early opportunities in the little theatres.

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Dramatic form developed in Germany after World War I by Bertolt Brecht and others, intended to provoke rational thought rather than to create illusion. It presents loosely connected scenes often interrupted by direct addresses to the audience providing analysis, argument, or documentation. Brecht's goal was to use alienating or distancing effects to block the emotional responses of the audience members and force them to think objectively about the play. Actors were instructed to keep a distance between themselves and the characters they portrayed and to emphasize external actions rather than emotions.

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Theatre wholly or partly subsidized by the city in which it operates. The term is also used for a noncommercial community theatre, meaning a noncommercial, locally based group. Most civic theatres in Europe are professional organizations; in the U.S. they are often run by amateur groups and may later become resident professional theatres. The first major U.S. civic theatre was established in New Orleans in 1919.

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In the U.S., a dramatic movement encompassing plays written by, for, and about blacks. The first known play by an American black was James Brown's King Shotaway (1823). After the Civil War, blacks began to perform in minstrel shows, and musicals written, produced, and acted entirely by blacks appeared by circa 1900. The first real success of a black dramatist was Angelina W. Grimké's Rachel (1916). Theatre flourished during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s, and by 1940 the American Negro Theater and the Negro Playwrights' Co. were firmly established. After World War II black theatre grew more progressive and militant, seeking to establish its own mythology, abolish racial stereotypes, and integrate black playwrights into the mainstream. Its strongest proponent, Amiri Baraka, established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre in 1965. In the 1980s and '90s the African American playwrights Charles Fuller and August Wilson won Pulitzer Prizes.

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British theatre company. It was formed in 1962 as the National Theatre with Laurence Olivier as director (1962–73) and included many actors from the Old Vic company. In 1976 the company moved from London's Old Vic Theatre to a newly constructed three-theatre complex on the southern bank of the Thames. In 1988 Queen Elizabeth II gave the company permission to add “Royal” to its name. Partly subsidized by the state, the theatre presents a mixed classic and modern repertoire. Its directors have included Peter Hall (1973–88), Richard Eyre (1988–97), Sir Trevor Nunn (1997–2003), and Nicholas Hytner (from 2003).

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or Maryinsky Theatre, formerly Kirov Theatre

Russian imperial theatre in St. Petersburg. The theatre opened in 1860 and was named for Maria Aleksandrovna, wife of the reigning tsar. Ballet was not performed there until 1880 and was presented regularly only after 1889, when the Imperial Russian Ballet became its resident company and acquired the Mariinsky name. The theatre's name was changed to the State Academic Theatre (1917–35) and later to the Kirov (for Sergey Kirov) State Academic Theatre for Opera and Ballet (1935–91); it reverted to its original name in 1991. Its resident ballet company, the celebrated Mariinsky (or Kirov) Ballet, tours worldwide.

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New York theatre company (1931–41) founded by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg to present U.S. plays of social significance. Embracing the acting principles of the Stanislavsky method, the company—which also included actors and directors such as Elia Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, and Stella Adler—staged John Howard Lawson's Success Story (1932), Sidney Kingsley's Men in White (1933), Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty (1935) and Golden Boy (1937), Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead (1936), and William Saroyan's My Heart's in the Highlands (1939), among many other plays.

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London theatre in which the plays of William Shakespeare were performed after 1599. It was built by two brothers, Cuthbert and Richard Burbage; half the shares were kept by the Burbages, and the rest were assigned equally to Shakespeare and other members of the Chamberlain's Men. The wooden theatre, built in the shape of an O with no roof over the central area, was destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and finally pulled down in 1644. Reconstructed (beginning 1987) near the site of the original theatre, the new Globe Theatre inaugurated its first regular season in 1996.

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Prominent ballet company based in New York City. It was founded in 1939 as the Ballet Theatre (the name was changed in 1958) by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant to promote works “American in character.” Oliver Smith replaced Pleasant as codirector in 1945; Mikhail Baryshnikov served as artistic director from 1980 to 1989 after dancing with the company in the 1970s. New ballets were created for the company by Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, and Antony Tudor; Michel Fokine revived many of his earlier works for them as well. Principal dancers have included Alicia Alonso, Erik Bruhn, Anton Dolin, and Natalia Makarova.

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Dublin theatre. It developed from the Irish Literary Theatre, founded in 1899 by William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory to foster Irish drama. After moving the troupe to a renovated theatre on Abbey Street in 1904, they codirected its productions with John Millington Synge, staged their own plays, and commissioned works by Sean O'Casey and others. Important premieres included Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars (1926). The Abbey became the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world in 1924. A fire destroyed the original playhouse in 1951, and a new theatre was built in 1966.

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