Go to a Rogue Theatre show and fifteen minutes before curtain the house opens and you can go in and sit down. The custom is that a band, or musicians, later fully incorporated in the show, will be playing music right up until curtain almost. The players, the actors, will be gathering visibly on stage and in the house and may stroll up to you for a casual conversation even. Just before curtain Joe or Cindy will welcome you, and remind you to turn off your cell phone. If you're like me, you've been on Fourth Ave. just prior eating pizza and drinking beer, or getting coffee or ice-cream.
Go to an Invisible Theatre show and wait in the small lobby for a while, and you admire all the pictures, posters, etc. from the many years of past production. Just before the house opens Susan will usually welcome you and make some announcements. By then the lobby is crowded and her talk, brief though it be, is entertaining in that way that only Susan can do. You go in, walking past or on the stage sometimes to your seat in the theatre, five or ten minutes ahead of curtain. Arriving you had been wondering where to park and thinking to yourself how many more years is IT going to be here and how have they ever managed this far in this local. (Something to talk to Susan about and write a post on it for sure).
Go to Live Theatre Workshop and you wait in the very small lobby or just outside on the sidewalk of the shopping center. Just before house opens there is someone to welcome you and make announcements. Go in and sit down in the theatre ten or fifteen minutes ahead of curtain. First thing you notice, especially if you are new, is that it is cold in there my gosh! Maybe you been a couple of doors down getting a drink, watching a drag show warm-up, or getting dessert and coffee down the other direction. If you haven't, you might be going at intermission to get some hot chocolate - did I mention it was cold in LTW?
Go to Arizona Theatre Company and you stroll around the courtyard of the Temple of Music and Art for a while, talking, gathering, drinking wine or coffee, checking out who is there, what they are wearing, who's hot or not, things like that. Few minutes before curtain you make your way in, upstairs, balcony baby, last row, or downstairs to the main house otherwise. Just at curtain or maybe beforehand depending on the nature of the show itself, you admire and marvel the technical wizardry at work in this place.
Yes, theatre really does begin at the cloakroom as they say for the spectator. Stories abound of theatre practitioners or administrators working to make the experience of the spectator arriving at the theatre a mood setting one. Food, drink, music, visual images, solicitation, greetings, escort, cleanliness and furnishings, and even the old hands-off-never-gave-it-a-thought offerings all contribute to a spectators sensory experience ahead of the actual performance itself. Since the days of Meyerhold's great innovations beginning about 100 years ago, modern day directors have been getting in on the act of "directing" the action, the perception, the view, this experience of the spectator too. They seat spectators in various configurations (not just proscenium), breaking them up into small units or groups sometimes rather than one large group. They put mirrors on the stage to reflect their image back. They employ a "proscenium servant" (a Meyerhold invention and one of my personal favorites) to look after or entertain the spectators. They institute a code of silence prior to the performance in all areas of the theatre or performance space. They have the actors talk directly to you during the performance or come sit next to you. In one of my all time favorite experiences as a spectator, we were sat at two long tables set opposite each other in a long room, with tablecloth, wine, glasses, bread and olives. Right before the performance started the bottles of wine were opened and poured for us.
As the performance ensued, we, as spectators drank wine, ate bread and olives. At the end of the performance, we stayed sitting, still drinking and eating and now talking about the show. Actors went and changed their clothes and all and came back in to thank us, and still we sat.
Its all in a days work of being a spectator.
Go to an Invisible Theatre show and wait in the small lobby for a while, and you admire all the pictures, posters, etc. from the many years of past production. Just before the house opens Susan will usually welcome you and make some announcements. By then the lobby is crowded and her talk, brief though it be, is entertaining in that way that only Susan can do. You go in, walking past or on the stage sometimes to your seat in the theatre, five or ten minutes ahead of curtain. Arriving you had been wondering where to park and thinking to yourself how many more years is IT going to be here and how have they ever managed this far in this local. (Something to talk to Susan about and write a post on it for sure).
Go to Live Theatre Workshop and you wait in the very small lobby or just outside on the sidewalk of the shopping center. Just before house opens there is someone to welcome you and make announcements. Go in and sit down in the theatre ten or fifteen minutes ahead of curtain. First thing you notice, especially if you are new, is that it is cold in there my gosh! Maybe you been a couple of doors down getting a drink, watching a drag show warm-up, or getting dessert and coffee down the other direction. If you haven't, you might be going at intermission to get some hot chocolate - did I mention it was cold in LTW?
Go to Arizona Theatre Company and you stroll around the courtyard of the Temple of Music and Art for a while, talking, gathering, drinking wine or coffee, checking out who is there, what they are wearing, who's hot or not, things like that. Few minutes before curtain you make your way in, upstairs, balcony baby, last row, or downstairs to the main house otherwise. Just at curtain or maybe beforehand depending on the nature of the show itself, you admire and marvel the technical wizardry at work in this place.
Yes, theatre really does begin at the cloakroom as they say for the spectator. Stories abound of theatre practitioners or administrators working to make the experience of the spectator arriving at the theatre a mood setting one. Food, drink, music, visual images, solicitation, greetings, escort, cleanliness and furnishings, and even the old hands-off-never-gave-it-a-thought offerings all contribute to a spectators sensory experience ahead of the actual performance itself. Since the days of Meyerhold's great innovations beginning about 100 years ago, modern day directors have been getting in on the act of "directing" the action, the perception, the view, this experience of the spectator too. They seat spectators in various configurations (not just proscenium), breaking them up into small units or groups sometimes rather than one large group. They put mirrors on the stage to reflect their image back. They employ a "proscenium servant" (a Meyerhold invention and one of my personal favorites) to look after or entertain the spectators. They institute a code of silence prior to the performance in all areas of the theatre or performance space. They have the actors talk directly to you during the performance or come sit next to you. In one of my all time favorite experiences as a spectator, we were sat at two long tables set opposite each other in a long room, with tablecloth, wine, glasses, bread and olives. Right before the performance started the bottles of wine were opened and poured for us.
As the performance ensued, we, as spectators drank wine, ate bread and olives. At the end of the performance, we stayed sitting, still drinking and eating and now talking about the show. Actors went and changed their clothes and all and came back in to thank us, and still we sat.
Its all in a days work of being a spectator.
I wish I had had a chance to see the experiential theatre shows like Tony n' Tina's Wedding (still running somewhere). You can go multiple times in a warehouse environment and see various scenes from the wedding event or follow one character through.
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