Stages & Auditoriums Copyright © 2000 Robert C. Huber
Can this Cock-Pit hold
The vastie fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this Wooden O the very Casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
Shakespeare, Henry V
"If you look at the bottom line, we're just building huge popcorn stores."
Jim Edwards, CEO Edwards Cinemas
The prime elements of dramatic art are the actor, audience, and story. The place where it is done, the theatre, is important but not essential. This is because theatre can be done anywhere, just as one can pray without being in a house of worship. On the other hand, the most important distinction between the modes of stage, film, and television is the relationship of the audience to the performance. And a key element of this relationship is the configuration of the theatre itself. Since television does not rely on a public performance space, we will focus only on stage and film.
When describing stages it is helpful to know certain theatrical terms of stage geography that are part of stage directions. Upstage means away from, and downstage means toward the audience. The terms stage left and stage right are relative to an actor facing the audience. In other words, stage left is to the right of the audience as they look at the stage.
Stage
Earlier we learned that the form of the word theatre with the -re ending is usually associated with the art of the stage. The word comes from Greek theatron which means the "seeing place." And it was the Greeks who designed and built the first true theatres. There are four basic theatre configurations commonly in use today. They are the 1) thrust, 2) proscenium, 3) arena, and 4) black box.
Thrust Stage (a.k.a. Three-Quarter Round)
History
Greek theatres consisted of three primary parts. The theatron was the part that we would today call the auditorium: the place where the audience sat to see and hear the play. The stage was called the orchestra which in Greek meant the dancing place. And the third part was the skene, a structure behind the actors through which they could enter and exit the stage. The auditorium was an approximately 270° segment of a circle which surrounded the circular stage about three-quarters of the way. Therefore the stage could be said to thrust into the audience, thus giving the name to this basic configuration. The remaining open quarter of the orchestra was backed by the skene which had three doorways for entrances and exits, and concealed some simple scenic devices. The Greek theatre changed somewhat over the thousand or so years of their culture. During their golden age (5th century B.C.) when the plays we know so well today were written and performed, the theatres were quite simple. They were built outdoors into a bowl-shaped hillside. The seating area was terraced up the hillside to accommodate simple wooden benches. The stage circle was at ground level and built of simple packed earth. The skene (from which we get our word scene) was a simple temporary tent-like structure. Later these theatres were converted to the more elaborate stone structures, some of which remain standing today. They were quite large, seating up to 12,000 people, and were built throughout the Mediterranean world.
What appears to be a thrust stage theatre is also seen in the ruins of ancient Rome. The Romans adapted the Greek model to their own needs. Roman engineers figured out how to make the building free-standing, eliminating the need for a hillside to support the auditorium. They also reduced the orchestra to a half-circle and made the skene much larger and more elaborate. The most important change the Romans made was the introduction of a raised wooden stage between the orchestra and the skene on which all the acting took place. Since the audience did not surround the actors, this was no longer a true thrust stage. Today we would call this arrangement an end stage: a stage built at the end of a room.
The thrust stage made one more important appearance in history. The theatres of the Elizabethan period (around 1580-1610) in England, in which Shakespeare's plays were performed, were of this type. Like Roman theatres they were free-standing open-roofed structures, but were much smaller and built of wood and plaster. The audience could either stand on the flat floor around the raised stage, or sit on benches in balcony-like galleries. In either case the audience surrounded the stage on three sides making this a true thrust stage theatre. The stage and galleries were covered with a roof, but those standing in the pit, who were called groundlings, were exposed to the elements. One of the easiest ways to see this type of theatre in action is to see the film Shakespeare In Love (1998) in which it is prominently and fairly accurately depicted. After 1642 this type of theatre disappeared and did not reappear until the twentieth century.Today
Beginning in the 1930s there was a revival of interest in staging Shakespeare's plays in the Elizabethan manner, especially in North America. Replica theatres were built in several locations including Ashland, Oregon; Stratford, Ontario; and Cedar City, Utah. The success of these theatres later led to the construction of modern versions of the thrust stage. Such theatres are found throughout the United States, especially on college campuses, although they appear as professional theatres as well. They may be circular or rectangular in form. The Mark Taper Forum, a regional theatre that is part of the Music Center complex in Los Angeles, is circular in form and seats about 1,000. It is very much like a modern indoor version of the Greek original. The Second Stage at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, California is of the rectangular type and seats about 250. Thrust stage theatres along with arena and black box are part of a group called open stages. They are called open because there is no arch or frame separating the audience from the stage. Architecturally, the audience and stage are areas within a single room.
Advantages
The thrust stage has two important advantages: intimacy and lower cost. Because the audience views the stage from three sides, each row of seats can be longer. This means that more seats can be closer to the stage. Also, the audience as a whole is viewing the action from three sides which emphasizes the three-dimensional quality of the living theatre. The audience has more of a sense of being in the same room as the actors. Audience members who are seated on opposite sides of the stage can see each other so there is a greater sense of community and shared experience. Plays that are written for small casts and whose stories are intimate and subtle do well in such theatres.
Lower cost is made possible in two ways. Since scenery can only be erected far upstage in order to avoid blocking the audience's clear view of the stage, it must be kept more simple. Complete changes of scenery are often avoided because there is little space around the stage to store it. This greatly reduces the cost of production. Second, without elaborate scenery changing devices and curtains, the cost of constructing this kind of theatre is much less.
Another distinct advantage of the thrust stage, especially to colleges and regional theatres, is its natural suitability for the staging of classical plays. Shakespeare, and even Molière, do particularly well in these venues.Disadvantages
Musicals and other plays which require spectacular effects and multiple changes of scenery do not do well in thrust stage theatres. While ingenious set designers can often find ways around its limitations, the thrust stage does not suit large-scale productions. The very intimacy which is its strength can violate the aesthetic distance required by such theatrical forms as opera and tragedy. Set designers are forced to rely more on surfaces which do not block audience sightlines. The horizontal floor and ceiling become their primary canvas, while the vertical dimension can only be expressed by walls at the back of the stage. Furniture props become much more important elements of the design. Typically, thrust stage theatres seat smaller audiences. Because of these and other limitations it is not uncommon for thrust stage theatres to be built alongside a proscenium theatre to compliment it.
Proscenium Stage (a.k.a. Picture Frame or Fourth Wall)
History
Proscenium is the name given a wall which separates the stage from the auditorium. The proscenium arch is the opening cut into that wall that allows the actors and audience to see and hear one another. The name is Latin but it derives from the Greek skene, the wall with doors at the back of their stage. It can be translated as "the front wall of the stage."
The proscenium theatre first developed around 1600 during the Renaissance in Italy. At that time there was great interest in the visual arts of painting and sculpture. This carried over into an emphasis on the scenery and spectacle in their theatres. They soon discovered that a wall between the stage and auditorium created wing and fly space that was invaluable in managing scenic effects. These theatres continued to develop throughout Europe during the Baroque period, and by the age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, had arrived at their typical form. This consisted of a horseshoe-shaped auditorium surrounded by several tiers of boxes and galleries, a huge and elaborately decorated proscenium arch which contained boxes and stage doors, and a stage equipped with every conceivable device for the changing of scenery. The stage floor was "raked" (or sloped) upward toward the back to enhance the illusion of perspective and to give better sightlines. This is the origin of the term upstage, since an actor who moved behind another was higher and could therefore be seen better. Royalty vied to see who could build the grandest and most elaborate auditoriums. They were laid out so that the perspective view of the scenery was best seen from the royal box at the back of the auditorium in the center of the second tier.Today
The proscenium stage has never gone out of fashion, in fact most people today still think of it as the only "proper" theatre. Twentieth century modernism has stripped away most of the elaborate decoration, but the essential form survived. The auditorium shape changed from horseshoe to fan-shape, boxes and galleries were removed from the side walls. Separate boxes were replaced by the more democratic balcony, and the auditorium floor was sloped for better sightlines with chairs instead of benches. The stage floor which had been sloped, was leveled. The proscenium arch lost its boxes and doors, becoming nothing more than a very simple picture-frame around the stage opening. A pit for an orchestra separated the stage and auditorium.
Proscenium theatres are the most common form throughout the world and examples abound. Even the smallest city has a municipal or school auditorium in this form. All Broadway theatres, many regional theatres, and most colleges and universities have proscenium stages. At the Music Center in Los Angeles there are two: the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson Theatre. At Cerritos College, the Burnight Center Theatre is an example as is the Cerritos Performing Arts Center.Advantages
In many ways this is the most versatile of all forms, not so much because of its flexibility but because most of the world's scripts were written with its kind of staging in mind. They used to say nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, the same could be said of the proscenium theatre.
A fully equipped stage in this form is like a "magic box," surrounded on five of its six sides with hiding places for "tricks." To the sides are the wings where scenery and props can be easily kept at the ready, concealed by masking drapes. To the rear, behind a backing curtain is crossover space allowing actors and crew to get from one side of the stage to the other. Above are the flies, a space large enough to completely hide curtains, drops, walls, and other scenic pieces. These elements can be quickly and easily raised and lowered mechanically. Below the stage is the trap room from where actors and scenery can be made to magically appear or disappear. In addition, the form of this theatre allows the audience to see the stage from only one side: the front, or fourth wall. This makes it much easier for directors, actors, and designers to create an illusion of reality. Like magicians they can conceal by slight of hand and misdirection the mechanics of their tricks. Because of these features, the proscenium stage is best adapted for plays which require a maximum of realism or special effects, as well as musicals and opera with their massive sets, casts, and orchestras. In addition, these theatres can be built quite large with the addition of one or two balconies, which means that producers can sell far more seats for each performance.Disadvantages
All these features come at a price. The proscenium theatre is the most expensive form to build, staff, and maintain. Because of high production costs in general, many plays are written today for small casts and minimal scenery. In addition, many of these productions are intended for more intimate contact with an audience, or cry out for a modification of the traditional audience to stage orientation. The proscenium stage is not well-suited to either of these situations. Experimental and avant-garde productions quite naturally appeal to a smaller audience, and a small group lost in a large auditorium can be a depressing experience for audience and actor alike.
Arena
In the arena stage, another type of open staging, the audience completely surrounds the performance area. It is also known as Center Stage or Theatre-in-the-Round. The stage may be round, oval, or rectangular, and aisleways are provided through the seating areas to allow both audience and actors to enter. In the more elaborate examples of arena stages, these aisles may be tunnels, called vomitoria, that open onto the stage from beneath the audience.History
This was the original theatre form. Our early ancestors would naturally form a circle around singers, dancers, or storytellers in order to see. By the time theatre became an institution within the civilization of ancient Greece, the need to accommodate larger audiences and more complex staging eclipsed the arena stage. One scholar, Richard Southern, in his book The Medieval Theatre In The Round has speculated that the arena stage made a brief comeback in England around 1400. These semi-permanent outdoor stages may have been used at that time to produce certain morality plays. But the modern reappearance of the arena stage can be dated with certainty. In the 1930s a professor of theatre arts at the University of Washington in Seattle was offered the use of the top floor of a building on campus as a theatre. Since the space was rather small by theatre standards he decided to experiment with a central stage with audience on four sides. He used an oval shape and provided aisles at both ends and the middle of each side. This top-floor theatre was aptly named the Penthouse Theatre and was so successful that it was widely imitated.
The arena form was adopted by many schools, community theatres, and a few professional theatres as well. The Glendale Center Theatre, a community theatre, runs an arena playhouse in Glendale, California, which has been an institution for many years. Even some professional theatres such as the Arena Stage in Washington D.C., and the Melodyland Theatre in Anaheim used this form.Today
Very few arena stages are built today, and most of those who used them in the past have changed to other forms. Only the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. remains successful among the commercial playhouses. When the arena form is used today, it is usually as a temporary configuration for a particular production.Advantages
For poorly funded amateur groups such as community theatres, schools, and "starving artists" who are promoting themselves, the arena theatre is a godsend. The presence of the audience on all four sides necessarily reduces scenery costs to a minimum, and the closeness of the audience means that actors with untrained voices can be more easily understood.Disadvantages
Directors and actors find it more difficult to work in such spaces because no matter which way an actor turns, he is giving his back to part of the audience. It is not uncommon for late arriving audience and actors to enter the stage at the same time, causing either confusion or laughter. The production of musicals or plays that depend heavily on realistic scenery and special effects is pretty much out of the question. Designers are left with only the floor, ceiling, and furniture to create a sense of place. Vertical scenery such as doorframes can only be used at the outer corners of the stage. The very simplicity which is the essence of arena staging also tends to give such theatres a cheap feel, and robs an evening at the theatre of some of its specialness.
The fate of the Melodyland Theatre is a case in point. Its producers knew that musicals were the most popular form of theatre, and that the arena stage was the cheapest to build and operate. It seemed obvious that tremendous profit would ensue. However, it closed part way through its first season. It seemed that ticketholders felt cheated because most of the spectacle that they had anticipated from a musical was missing. Even the orchestra was diminished in impact when hidden behind the seats. It is now used as a church.
Black Box
This form of open staging, also known as a Flexible or Adaptable theatre, is distinguished by the absence of a permanent configuration. The typical black box is a large room with a high ceiling and a flat wooden floor. Seats and risers can be moved anywhere within the space, while the stage may be the floor itself, or elevated on temporary risers. The only permanent features are the lighting grid attached to the ceiling, and the control booths in the walls. It takes its name from the common practice of painting its interior surfaces black to avoid light reflection and to maintain the neutrality of the space.
History
The black box theatre is a late twentieth century innovation. By the 1950s theatre students at colleges needed to be trained in a variety of staging forms, and since funds for the arts were always in short supply, surplus rooms were converted to function as "theatre labs." These simple spaces could be quickly changed to employ any stage form. This solution proved so successful that by the 1960s permanent black box theatres were being designed and built. The Studio Theatre at Cerritos College is a good example. Before long, architects began to experiment with more sophisticated applications of this idea. The Krannert Center at the University of Indiana is one such experiment in mechanical-adaptable theatres. With the push of a button, this theatre was designed to flex from proscenium to thrust to arena. Ultimately it was found that such delicate mechanical devices were too expensive and unreliable. Also, so many compromises had to be made in each form to accommodate flexing, that none of them was entirely satisfactory as a theatre. Today, this theatre is permanently left in its proscenium form. A similar experiment was done at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. A black box theatre was given a floor composed of four-foot by four-foot modular squares each controlled by a hydraulic piston. The idea was to eliminate lugging around seating and stage risers. It was somewhat more successful than the Krannert Center, but still had a lot of bugs. Someone once designed a vehicle which could float, fly, and drive down the road--but it didn't do any one of them very well. The theatre seems to have learned its lesson since mechanical-adaptable theatres have become quite rare. A notable exception is the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Cerritos California. It is a proscenium theatre which can have its auditorium seating capacity mechanically changed from large to medium. It was copied from a successful design in the north of England.Today
Conventional black box theatres have become quite common. The ability to change the auditorium-to-stage relationship is invaluable for both training and experimental theatre situations. At schools black boxes are sometimes paired with a more conventional auditorium, as is the case at Cerritos College. Small professional theatres, especially Equity Waiver in Los Angeles, and off-off Broadway in New York make extensive use of this form.Advantages
The most obvious advantage of the black box is the flexibility it affords to producers, directors, and designers. In this type of staging, set designers can include the shaping of the audience-stage relationship in their plan. Directors can adjust the allocation of space to suit the needs of both the script and the abilities of the actors. Producers can stage nearly any kind of play, and seating capacity can be altered to accommodate the size of audience expected. The cost of creating a black box theatre can be very low. Any appropriately sized empty room can be converted with some chairs, seating risers, pipes to hang lights, a few curtains, and black paint.Disadvantages
Black boxes can not accommodate more than about two hundred people, so they are not suitable for situations where the costs of expensive productions must be recovered by selling lots of seats. Those who run them often find that more labor than you would think must go into changing from one configuration to another. Changeover can involve not only seats, but curtains, lighting, and safety equipment as well. For school situations where some of the labor is free is one thing, but paying union stage hands or getting actors to do it is quite another. Like arena, black box theatres often have a cheesy quality when compared to more opulent uptown theatres.
Other Forms
Ninety-nine percent of all theatres fall into one of the four preceding classifications, but there are always a few exceptions. Street or guerrilla theatre had its origin in the late 1960s. Simple short plays, often with a political or social message, were performed in public places in order to confront an audience that might not go to see such a thing in a theatre. Street theatre makes use of whatever features may be found on site.
Closely related to street theatre is found space. Performances are held "on location" in a site that is uniquely appropriate to the subject or theme of the play, such as a train station, jail, or shopping mall. What distinguishes it from street theatre is that they get permission, close the space to the public, and set it up with lighting, sound, and other production elements. One of the most successful companies to employ this form is the Cornerstone Theatre headquartered in Los Angeles. Their Everyman in the Mall (1998) received critical praise and sold-out bookings.
A third form is a variation of the black box: environmental theatre. This term was coined by Richard Schechner whose Performance Group was one of the most influential experimental theatres of the sixties and seventies. They mounted their productions in a converted auto repair garage. Scenes were staged in several locations throughout the space. Since there were no chairs for the audience, they had to follow the action as it unfolded from place to place. A more recent production to use this form was Tamara, set in the 1930s, about an Italian poet and his mistress that was staged in a Los Angeles mansion from that period. Scenes occurred simultaneously throughout the house and audience was free to follow specific characters from place to place. One needed to attend several times to get the whole story, but tickets got cheaper the more often you came. The latest incarnation of this form is Tony N' Tina's Wedding which takes place in a church and reception hall with the audience functioning as guests. It started in Los Angeles and continues in New York and other cities. It has been very successful, partially because it takes a cue from dinner theatre and feeds the audience!
Screen
While theatre has the most profound relationship to the space in which it is performed, film also uses theaters of a sort. Much of what has changed in film over the last few decades has as much to do with these theaters and the technology they contain as the art of filmmaking. We will also look at television in this regard, but in less depth since its "theater" is essentially your home.
Film
Once films are made they pass from the studio or producer through two more hands before they reach you, the distributor and exhibitor. A distributor is in the business of advertising films, making deals with movie theatres to show films, making sufficient copies, and delivering these copies to the theatres on time. An exhibitor owns theatres and is in the business of showing movies to the public. Although most readers of this book will not remember this, there was a time when all movie theaters had only one screen. At a neighborhood theater a new film opened on Friday and was shown for a week. This worked pretty well when there weren't too many films, but production began to increase. So about twenty years ago exhibitors started building a wall down the center of the auditorium and adding a second screen. When this wasn't enough to keep up, they started building brand new theatres with up to eleven screens, what the industry calls a multiplex. Today, over 400 new films are released each year, a number that has been growing steadily over the past few years. The exhibitors have responded with the megaplex, a theater with twelve or more screens--and recently the emphasis is on more. We are in the midst of a movie screen boom. In 1994 there were 26,689 screens in the United States, today there are more than 30,000, and it's growing at the rate of as much as 1000 new screens every four months. Regional chains like AMC and Edwards are increasing by more than 100 screens each year. The largest single theatre as of 1998 was in Orange, California with 30 screens. Such huge theatre complexes are often the "anchor" of an entire mall or shopping center. Megaplexes cost about $25 million to build, and can only be successful if they clear about 10% of that cost annually in income.
You may have wondered why your movie ticket costs $8.50--now you know. Many people think movie tickets are expensive because movie budgets have gotten so big. Actually, only a fraction of the price of your ticket goes to pay for the making of the film. Exhibitors and distributors split the income from your ticket, so after the distributor takes his cut, the film's makers get less than half. On the other hand, exhibitors make up to 40% of their income from concessions. The highest profit margin is on popcorn which has about a 400% markup.
In addition to sheer numbers of screens, exhibitors have also pushed to make the experience of going out to the movies more attractive. New technologies such as digital surround sound and IMAX are attempts to put some distance between theatrical release and the home video experience. More comfortable and stadium-style seating, gourmet snacks, arcade games, and decor that has not been seen in theaters since the great movie palaces of the 1930s complete the picture.
On the other hand, there is a segment of the industry that seems to be saying that small is better. Among those 400-odd films being released each year are some that appeal to only a few passionate film aficionados. The so-called art film theaters show limited release movies from overseas, the work of independent and underground filmmakers, and documentaries. These theatres often have only one screen, and are usually found near universities and in the parts of town where artists and other bohemians live. In Los Angeles they are mostly on the Westside, in Venice, Santa Monica, or West Hollywood. In Orange County, art films are shown at:
Television
As a part of its ongoing war with the film industry for viewers, television has tried to make the small screen as big as possible and to bring sound up to audiophile standards. In 1998 an entirely new broadcast format, HDTV, or High Definition Television was introduced. This new standard will give the TV screen the same shape as a movie screen, and its digital image will do for video resolution what CDs did for audio quality. Now arriving are flat screen TVs which can be hung on a wall to save space.
Reading Assignment
You should be reading Chapter 5 in your textbook to get more information about the role of the audience and its imagination. Before reading the chapter go to the online quiz at:
I suggest you print out the quiz and mark the answers on the hard copy as you read the chapter. When you are ready to submit your answers, go back online, fill in the "Name" box with your last name, comma, first name--like this: Smith, Jamie. Then fill in the "Email" box with the address you want your your score sent to. Put your 7-digit Cerritos College Student ID number in the third box. Then click the buttons for your answers. Make sure you have filled in your complete email address, not mine. Click on the Submit button at the bottom of the quiz. You will immediately see a confirmation that your quiz has been sent. Right after the due date I will forward your score and a copy of your corrected quiz to you.
Lecture Exercise
Name the four basic theatre configurations and one advantage and one disadvantage of each.
The purpose of these exercises is to show me you "attended" this specific lecture by employing the relevant points from the lecture in your answer to the question. Review the lecture and be sure you are answering in terms of what's there, not just your opinion.
Note that when submitting the answer start the subject line with:
TH101DE -- YourLastName -- L-7
Next lecture: Acting
Further Information
This is a newly added feature for the online class. As I stumble upon current information from various sources that extends and expands upon the subject of this lecture I will post links to them at the end. There is no credit offered for exposing yourself to this information. It is here for those students who have a curiousity about the subject matter and who understand that learning is its own reward.
Where's Sid When We Need Him? An essay about movie theatre architecture that appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine (8/28/2005) by one of my favorite journalists, Dan Neil.