Edwin Wilson,
City University of NY Alvin Goldfarb,
Western Illinois University
ISBN: 0072872187 Copyright year: 2005
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Experiencing Theater
Theater as an Art Form
What is Art?/The Art of Theater
SummaryPART ONE: CREATING THEATER
CHAPTER 1 AUDIENCES AND CRITICS
The Theater Audience/How the Audience Participates/Diversity of Audiences/Play Synopses: Fences/The Theater Critic/What Is Criticism?/Critics and Reviewers/Getting Started in Theater/Mel Gussow: Critic/Preparing for Criticism/Criteria for Criticism/Descriptive versus Prescriptive Criticism/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 2 THE PLAYWRIGHT: CREATING THE SCRIPT
The Playwright’s Centrality/Getting Started in Theater: Suzan-Lori Parks/The Playwright’s Tasks/
Subject/
Focus and Emphasis/
Dramatic Purpose/
Making Connections: Writers/
Structure in Drama/
Essentials of Dramatic Structure/Creating a Dramatic Structure/
Getting Started in Theater—August Wilson: Playwright/
Two Basic Structures: Climactic and Episodic/
Play Synopses: Mother Courage and Her Children/
Other Dramatic Structures/
Creating Dramatic Characters/
Types of Dramatic Characters/Juxtaposition of Characters/
Summary/
Key Terms/
CHAPTER 3 TRAGEDY OR COMEDY? DRAMATIC GENRES
What is Genre?/Tragedy Conditions for Tragedy: Theater and Society/Traditional Tragedy/Modern Tragedy Comedy/Characteristics of Comedy/Forms of Comedy Play Synopses: Tartuffe-Heroic Drama/Melodrama--Domestic of Bourgeois Drama/Tragicomedy--Shakespearian /Tragicomedy--Modern Tragicomedy/Summary/ Key Terms CHAPTER 4 STAGE PERFORMERS
A Historical Perspective: Demands of Classical Acting/Three Challenges of Acting/Getting Started in Theater/James Earl Jones: Performer/Mastering the Craft of Acting/Making Characters Believable/Play Synopses: The Cherry Orchard/Synthesis and Integration/Making Connections: Acting/Judging Performances/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 5 THE DIRECTOR AND THE PRODUCER
The Director/Evolution of the Director/The Auteur Director/The Director at Work/Getting Started in Theater/Richard Foreman/Getting Started in Theater/Emily Mann/The Director’s Collaborators/The Producer or Manager Producers in Commercial Theater/Noncommercial Theaters Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 6 THEATER SPACES
Proscenium or Picture-Frame Stage: History and Characteristics/Thrust Stage: History and Characteristics/Arena Stage: History and Characteristics/ Making Connections: Popular Performance Spaces/Created or Found Spaces/Multifocus Environments/All-Purpose and Experimental Spaces/Summary/Key Terms CHAPTER 7 DESIGNERS: SCENERY AND COSTUMES
Scene Design/The Scene Designer’s Objectives/Getting Started in Theater/Robin Wagner/Elements of Scene Design/The Process of Scene Design: Steps in the Design Process/The Scene Designer’s Collaborators/Designing a Total Environment/Costume Design/The Costume Designer/The Costume Designer’s Objectives/Getting Started in Theater/Jess Goldstein/Elements of Costume Design/The Costume Designer’s Collaborators/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 8 DESIGNERS: LIGHTING AND SOUND
Stage Lighting/Lighting in Theater History/Getting Started in Theater¿Peggy Eisenhauer/Objectives of Lighting Design/Elements of Stage Lighting/The Lighting Designer’s Resources/The Lighting Designer’s Collaborators/Sound Design/The Sound Designer/Objectives of Sound Design/Sound Reproduction and Sound Reinforcement/Elements of Sound: Sound Technology/The Sound Designer’s Collaborators/Special Effects in Lighting and Sound/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 9 PROFILE OF A PRODUCTION: Roundabout
Theatre’s Production of Big River
PART TWO THEATER TRADITION AND THEATER TODAY
CHAPTER 10 GREEK AND ROMAN THEATER
Origins of Theater/Greece/Background: The Golden Age of Greece/Theater and Culture: Greek Theater Emerges/Timeline: Greece/Greek Tragedy--Living History: Antigone/Play Synopses: King Oedipus/Greek Comedy/Theater Production in Greece/Dramatic Criticism in Greece: Aristotle/Later Greek Theater/Rome/Background: Rome and Its Civilization/Theater and Culture in Rome/Popular Entertainment in Rome/Timeline: Rome/Roman Comedy: Plautus and Terence/Living History: The Menaechmi/Roman Tragedy: Seneca/Dramatic Criticism in Rome: Horace/Theater Production in Rome/Decline of Roman Theater Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 11 ASIAN AND MEDIEVAL THEATER
Asia Background: Asian Theater/Theater in India Timeline: Asia/Theater in China/Theater in Japan Living History: Sotoba Kamachi/Play Synopses: Sotoba Komahi The Middle Ages/Background: Medieval Europe/Theater and Culture in the Middle Ages/Timeline: Middle Ages Medieval Drama: Mystery, Miracle, and Morality Plays Living History: Noah’s Ark/Medieval Theater Production Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 12 RENAISSANCE THEATER
Italy/Background: The Renaissance Era/Italian Theater: Commedia dell’Arte/Timeline: Italian Renaissance Living History: Commedia dell’Arte/Italian Dramatic Rules: The Neoclassical Ideals/Theater Production in Italy England/Background: Elizabethan England/Elizabethan Drama Timeline: English Renaissance/Elizabethan Theater Production Living History: Hamlet/Making Connections: Popular Arts of Shakespeare’s Time/Theater After Elizabeth’s Reign Spain/Background: The Spanish Golden Age/Spanish Drama Timeline: Spanish Golden Age/Living History: The King Theater Production in Spain/France/Background: France in the Seventeenth Century/French Drama: The Neoclassical Era Timeline: Neoclassical France/Living History: Tartuffe Theater Production in France/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 13 FROM RESTORATION THROUGH ROMANTICISM
The English Restoration/Background: England in the Seventeenth Century/Restoration Drama: Comedies of Manners/Timeline: The English Restoration/Living History: The Country Wife/Theater Production in the Restoration/Play Synopses: The Way of the World/The Eighteenth Century/Background: A More Complex World/ Timeline: The Eighteenth Century/Eighteenth-Century Drama: New Dramatic Forms/Theater Production in the Eighteenth Century/Living History: The Marriage of Figaro/ The Nineteenth Century/Background: A Time of Social Change/Theater in Nineteenth-Century Life/Timeline: Nineteenth Century/Nineteenth-Century Dramatic Forms Making Connections: Nineteenth-Century Popular Theatrical Arts/Theater Production in the Nineteenth Century/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 14 EARLY MODERN MOVEMENTS
The Birth of Realism/Background: The Modern Era/Timeline: 1875-1915/Theatrical Realism/Realistic Playwrights/Play Synopses: A Doll’s House Realism and Naturalism/Producers of Realism: Independent Theaters/Living History: The Sea Gull/Realistic Theater between 1915 and 1945/Timeline: 1915 to 1945/Departures from Realism/Antirealist Playwrights: Ibsen, Strindberg, and Wedekind/Symbolism/ Antirealist Designers: Appia and Craig/Russian Theatricalism: Meyerhold/Early Eclectics/Departure From Realism: 1915-1945 Totalitarianism, the Second World War, and Theater/ Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 15 TWENTIETH CENTURY DIVERSITY
Postwar Realistic Theater/Background: The Postwar Era/Timeline: 1945-2000/American Selective Realism Play Synopses: Death of a Salesman/The “Angry Young Men” in England and Documentary Drama in Germany/Experimentation and Departures from Realism: 1945 to 1980/Living History: Waiting for Godot/Existentialism and Theater of the Absurd/Experimental Theater/Play Synopses: Waiting for Godot /Postwar Eclectics/Developments in Postwar American Theater African American Theater/Musical Theater/Alternatives to Commercial Theater/Making Connections: Film and the Other Mass Media/Summary/Key Terms
CHAPTER 16 CONTEMPORARY TRENDS
The Beginning of a New Century/ Today’s Theater: Diversity and Eclecticism/ Asian American Theater/Hispanic Theater/Native American Theater/Feminist Theater/Play Synopses: Fefu and Her Friends Gay and Lesbian Theater/Performance Art/Postmodernism/International Trends/Two African Playwrights/Today and Tomorrow: A Look Ahead/ Making Connections: The Digital Arts/Summary/ Key Terms
Index
LIST OF BOXES
GETTING STARTED IN THEATER
Mel Gussow: Critic/Joan MacIntosh: Performer /Richard Foreman: Director, playwright, and designer/ Zelda Fichlander: Director and artistic director /Robin Wagner: Scene designer/Jess Goldstein: Costume designer/Peggy Eisenhauer: Lighting designer/Emily Mann: Director-playwright/August Wilson: PlaywrightSYNOPSES OF PLAYS
A Raisin in the Sun
The Cherry Orchard
Tartuffe
Mother Courage and Her Children
King Oedipus
Sotoba Komachi
The Way of the World
A Doll’s House
Death of a Salesman
Waiting for Godot
Fefu and Her FriendsTIMELINES
Greece
Rome
The Middle Ages
Asia
The Italian Renaissance
The English Renaissance
The Spanish Golden Age
Neoclassical France
The English Restoration
The Eighteenth Century
The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1875
1875-1945
1945-1990sLIVING HISTORY
Antigone
The Menaechmi
Noah’s Ark
Sotoba Komachi
Commedia dell’Arte
Hamlet
The King, The Greatest Alcalde
Tartuffe
The Country Wife
The Marriage of Figaro
The Sea Gull
Waiting for Godot