staging: all the world’s a stage h070 topic titleh470...
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H070 Topic TitleH470 Topic Title
Staging: All the
world’s a stage
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Staging‘All the world’s a stage’
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Amphitheatre
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
Amphitheatre
Also known as ‘Arena’.
Large performance space.
Audience in Semi-Circle with tiered seating.
Ancient Greek form of staging that started in the
5thCentury BC then became Roman also.
FACT: The biggest Amphitheatre is in Athens and
seats 15,000 which is the same as a
Championship football ground!
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• Great for outdoors.
• Great for musicals/rock concerts.
• Great for large casts and ‘epic’ performances.
• Great for large scenery, some lighting, sound and special effects.
• Great for a football crowd feel!
• Hard to create a bond between the audience because of the distance.
• Outdoor staging – you have to rely on weather.
• Acoustics can cause difficulties.
• Lighting complications.
Advantages and Disadvantages
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
Thrust Theatre
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Thrust Theatre
A stage with audience on 3 sides.
Derived from the era Shakespeare during
Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
Where social & economic division started in
theatre – Galleries were where wealthy people
sat showing there high status.
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• Great for large scale productions. The Globe theatre
• More intimate as actors are closer to the audience and surrounded by them.
• Large items of set are able to be used upstage without interfering with ‘sightlines’
• Most plays work well in this staging.
• Props/furniture cause sightline problems, blocking needs to be precise ‘spiking’ is essential during the tech. Props plot is also essential.
• Actors have to relate to 3 sides
to get interaction.
• Lighting plot needs to be more
complex.
• Entrances/Exits/Wings need to
be thought out because of
sightlines
• The stage floor is a vital part of
the set design because of the
audience seating.
• Scene changes have to be done
in front of the audience.
Advantages and Disadvantages
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Proscenium Arch
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Proscenium Arch
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
In the late 17th Century until early 20th Century it
became the standard form of staging for most theatres
in Britain.
In the west end and older regional theatre the theatres
retain their ‘dividing line’.
Arch is built to accommodate the ‘curtain’.
‘Picture Frame’ effect for audience – with single view
like television viewing.
Audience or the stage is always raked.
Old days the curtain was always dropped for scene
changes but rarely in modern theatre.
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• Audiences are comfortable as
this is the most familiar
staging.
• Sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’
creates realism.
• Realistic sets easy to create –
the 4th wall is removed the
illusion of reality is created.
• Blocking is easier with
entrances and exits.
• Technical effects are easier to
achieve.
• Most types and scales of
performance can be
successful.
• Difficult for an audience to
become heavily involved.
• Realism can be hard to create as
they have a fourth wall. Blocking
needs to ensure it isn’t too linear
in performance and no one has
there back to the audience.
• Furniture needs to be placed
with the audience in mind –
good plot and spike during tech
rehearsal. ‘Sightlines’.
• Blocking needs to be natural but
ensuring that the audience can
see all that is going on. Example
of the family dinner table.
Advantages and Disadvantages
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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In the round
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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In the round
Means…’The audience surrounds the stage’.
Doesn’t necessarily need to be ‘round’ but audience
need to be all the way around the performing area to be
in the round.
The stage is at floor level with raked audience all the
way around – similar to amphitheatre but all four sides
not semi-circular.
Few theatres with main houses that are designed for ‘in
the round’ performances – but some can adapt.
Most studio theatres are designed to be able to adapt to
an ‘in the round’ performance.
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
Advantages and Disadvantages• Audience – actor bond is strong
and intimate because the actors
are close to the audience.
• Impossible to have a realistic
set in the round – enhances
imagination watching. Audience
has to create a sense of
environment themselves.
• Naturalistic performance – as
you’ll have your back to
someone at some stage.
• Scene changes can happen as
part of the performance – by
cast or stage management in
costume.
• Similar to thrust issues but even
more so!
• Unless you can raise the audience
you will struggle with sightline
problems.
• Realism can’t be used with this
set.
• Harder restrictions for designers
of set, lighting & sound.
Restrictions on placing furniture
and focus of lights.
• Blocking has to be highly accurate
because of performing to 4 sides.
• Actors can be subtle – having
audience all around.
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Traverse Stage
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Traverse Stage
Also so known as ‘Theatre in the Corridor’
It’s a corridor between two blocks of
audience.
It’s a very uncommon type of stage form.
Few theatres are built to accommodate this
exclusively.
Traverse theatre Edinburgh, although its
retained it’s name it how has a new building
and stages in other forms.
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Advantages and Disadvantages• Audience uses imagination due
to set restrictions like ‘in the round’.
• Use doors/walls to create a corridor feel with interfering with sightlines.
• Simple form to create in a studio theatre.
• Good staging for small audiences.
• Scene changes have to be carried out in full view of the audience.
• Good for enabling use of movement – causing swift changes of location in a fast paced play.
• Suitable only for a relatively small
audience – although there are
exceptions.
• Audience ideally needs to be
raked in tiers like a catwalk –
which can be hard to create.
• Using each extreme end of the
stage can create problems for
audience sightlines and can cause
a Wimbledon effect for the
audience which is wearing.
• During scene changes, blocking
usually means one set of actors
has to exit one end & the new
cast/new scene comes on from the
other end to start.
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
Promenade Theatre
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Promenade Theatre
Audience and performers occupy the same
space.
Audience follow the performers from one area
to the next.
Usually no seating
It’s a rare form of theatre that has developed
in the last 20 years.
Usually performed in large spaces although
‘fringe’ theatres use this effectively.
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Advantages and Disadvantages• Staged simply and cheaply
usually.
• Exciting form of staging that
has a real sense of community.
• Audience usually incorporated
into the performance.
• Lighting is used to point where
action is moving to.
• Difficult to rehearse with so much
audience participation.
• Audience may be hard to control –
may have to have an invited
audience to rehearsals.
• Lighting is complex because of
glare into the audience.
• Sound design is difficult placing
of speakers needs a lot of thought.
• H&S nightmare – trailing cables,
trips hazards etc.
• Shorter members of the audience
have to be thought of as they are
disadvantaged.
• Disabled audience members have
to be considered.
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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Non Conventional Theatre
When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
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When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
Non Conventional Theatre
Have you heard of any of these or have you
maybe seen some of these?
Created in the late 20th/21st Century.
Interest has grown since the Edinburgh fringe
festival.
Locations that can be used: Car Park, Public
Toilet, Restaurant etc.
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When designing a stage you have to remember the ‘actor-audience’ relationship
Advantages and Disadvantages• Unusual and exciting.
• Unique theatre no two
performances will be
the same.
• Very site specific.
• Very imaginative.
• Public might not
appreciate it’s a
performance in public.
• Technical challenges if
you need to use them.
• Limited Audiences.
• Costume changes,
entrance and exit
problems.
Look around the school can you identify areas
where non-conventional theatre can take place?
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OCR acknowledges the use of the following content: Slide 3 Ancient Greek Amphitheatre, Graeme Shannon/Shutterstock.com, Roman theatre, Morphart/Shutterstock.com: Minack Theatre, open air theatre by the sea,Nigel Hicks/ Dorling Kindersley / Universal Images Group/Britannica: Slide 6 The Globe Theatre, David Hughes / Robert Harding World Imagery / Universal Images Group/Britannica: Slide 8 Royal Opera House, The Granger Collection / Universal Images Group/Britannica; Interior view of San Carlo Theatre in Naples, De Agostini / L. Romano / Universal Images Group/Shutterstock.com: Slide 11Theatre in the Round, Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons: Slide 14 Traverse Theatre, Wikimedia Commons: Slide 17 Street Theatre, Nivelles/Wikimedia Commons: Slide 21 Street theatre performance of Bobeche and Galimafre, c.1820, Musee de la Ville de Paris / Musee Carnavalet / Paris / France / Bridgeman Art Library / Universal Images Group/BritannicaPlease get in touch if you want to discuss the accessibility of resources we offer to support delivery of our qualifications: [email protected]