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CHAPTER 1
THEATRE TYPES
An understanding of the development of the physical nature of theatres requires an understanding of history and its effect on the design of
theatre buildings. Throughout history, the design of theatrical structures
has been heavily influenced by the engineering and construction methods
that were known to a particular culture. Styles of producing plays (and
other types of entertainment) have also been a factor. The type of venue
needed for a play is entirely different from one that can be used for a chariot
race.
The Greeks did not arbitrarily select the amphitheater as a type of
structure because they liked being outdoors, but rather used the construction methods available in their time period to create the most useful and
efficient space possible, to be used in producing the type of entertainment
that was popular in their time. Large indoor structures were simply not
possible without modern engineering methods.
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2 ILLUSTRATED THEATRE PRODUCTION GUIDE
The Roman society spawned excellent civil engineers.
They used their talents to create many civic improvements
like roads, aqueducts and public buildings. Many of these
achievements involved the use of arches. An arch is formed
when the forces created by one stone curve cancel out the
forces created by one or more adjacent structures. This concept allowed the Romans to use a series of arches to build the
Colosseum, a freestanding oval structure best suited to the
games, races, and physical contests that were the most popular types of entertainment in that period. The Colosseum
was an architectural marvel of its day, not only because of its
size, but also because of its clever high-tech features like stage
elevators and trap doors that allowed performers to enter the
space unexpectedly.
In a Greek style amphitheater, with a round performance
area or Orchestra, it was necessary to curve the seating rows
around the shape of the orchestra in order to ensure that
audience members would be as close as possible to the action
of the drama. Having the audience and performers in close
proximity to one another is almost always good for the relationship between actor and audience. When the Greek choral form of entertainment began to give way to individual
actors speaking lines of dialogue, a raised platform area was
provided to give them prominence, or focus. This area was
called the skene by the Greeks, and is the root of our word
proscenium.
Roman theatres were constructed in much the same manner as the Greek ones were, with the major differences being
that the elevated stage area was greatly enlarged and elaborated upon, and the circular choral area was cut in half to
form a semicircle. As with the Colosseum, the Romans were
able to build freestanding banks of tiered seats for their theatres rather than depending entirely upon the geography of
hillsides. These theatres generally were somewhat smaller in
scope than their Greek counterparts.
The earliest Greek theatres took advantage of existing
hillsides to form a sloping audience area that curved around
a circular performance area. Pre-Industrial-Revolution technology did not provide their culture with heavy earth-moving equipment to form the slopes from scratch, and oftentimes large amphitheaters were asymmetrical as a result of
following the existing terrain. Greek theatres are an excellent
early example of the science of sightlines as used in designing
a performance space. The study of sightlines is a notion
whereby the ability of the audience to see the performance
area can be enhanced by the proper arrangement of the seating area. This term can also be used to indicate which portions of a stage space are visible from the audience. Obviously, another person sitting directly in front of you will impede your ability to properly view the stage. By banking
(also known as raking) the seating rows up and away from
the front of the stage, sightlines are vastly improved.
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THEATRE TYPES 3
The Romans were also innovative in the introduction of
a front curtain that could be used to mask the stage from the
view of the audience. As these early theatres were open-air,
daytime-use structures, there was no way to hang a curtain
from above; the Romans used instead a series of poles coming out of the stage floor to hold up the drape. When these
poles were lowered, the stage and its occupants were revealed.
This seems at best a cumbersome arrangement, but lacking
the technology to construct large open spans inside a building, it was the best method available at the time. It is mentioned here as a contrast to the ease with which curtains may
be hung in a modern proscenium theatre using a counterweight system. The ability to construct the type of structure
needed to house today’s modern rigging systems did not appear until much more recent times.
The next period to greatly influence the progress of theatrical design was the Italian Renaissance. The development
of theories pertaining to illusionist painting and perspective
rendering created the need for much more advanced production methods. The type of scenery utilized during the Renaissance period was often based on the methods used in onepoint perspective drawing, where a single vanishing point is
located somewhere near the bottom center of the viewing
plane.
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Objects in the foreground are shown in a larger scale
than those objects in the distance. This technique creates an
illusion of depth and three-dimensionality. This effect was
further realized by using a series of viewing planes spaced at
intervals, moving away from the audience. Objects farther
upstage were rendered in a smaller size. For a city scene, this
would require a number of building images painted on flat
panels, with each successive building being rendered in a scale
somewhat smaller than the one preceding it. This style of
design is known generically as “Wing and Drop” scenery. In
order to assure that the carefully created illusion of depth was
not shattered, all action was required to occur in front of the
first plane. Naturally, an actor who ventured too near the
rear of the stage would appear grotesquely large in proportion to the scale of the scenery. This latter technique can be
seen in modern-day amusement parks, and movie special effects.
The concepts embraced by Wing and Drop scenery are
still very much present in the 21st century. Scenery designed
for proscenium theatres today has many parallels to this earlier style of design.
Because the vanishing point in this “forced perspective”
style of design must be elevated from the stage floor in order
for the lines to appear realistic, the stage floor behind the
acting area was raked upward, away from the audience to
achieve the desired effect. This was, of course, the origination of the terms upstage and downstage. In later periods
when permanent theatres were larger and grander, the immense size of the settings negated somewhat the requirement
that actors remain at a distance from the painted scenery.
Hence an actor who traveled toward the back wall would
literally be walking “upstage,” and on the return trip would
be treading “downstage.”
The question arises of how to easily change the appearance of the stage setting while a show is in progress. Some
15th- and 16th-century theatres used the “chariot and pole”
system of shifting scenery. This consisted of a series of slots
cut into the stage floor running left to right, and a number of
symmetrically arranged poles that rose up through them.
These upright poles were mounted on carts in a basement
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4 ILLUSTRATED THEATRE PRODUCTION GUIDE
area that allowed the poles to roll easily (a relative term) back
and forth. Using an intricate system of ropes, pulleys, and
other linkages, groups of these devices could be operated in a
more or less synchronized fashion. When one set of wings
was moved off stage, a second set was revealed, telling the
audience that the action of the play had shifted to a new
location. This method of crude animatronics seems many
times more complicated and clumsy than Roman efforts to
elevate a simple front drape by using poles in the floor. However, when viewed in the context of the period, the chariot
and pole system was an elegant engineering solution in a time
that offered only limited facilities for suspending scenery from
above.
The Renaissance period saw the development of the
proscenium theatre as we know it today. The farthermost
downstage set of flats (also known as wings) became a permanent architectural feature of the building. When supplemented by an overhead masking piece, this feature became
recognizable as the proscenium arch so common in our own
era. The proscenium not only serves as a frame for the setting, but also separates the audience from the stage, allowing
for the use of intricate mechanical devices that are completely
hidden from patrons in the auditorium. By the late 19th
century it became possible to construct an overhead fly house
of the sort in use today. The advent of realism and “box sets”
in the early 20th century eventually did away with the practice of raking the stage for forced perspective settings.
The most common type of theatre in use in North
America is the proscenium house. Its advantages are most
obvious when spectacle is an important element of the production. Professional touring companies of Broadway shows
are restricted to proscenium theatres because of their large
audience capacity and also because of the similarity of stage
equipment available in all proscenium houses. Although the
lobbies and auditoriums of various road houses throughout
the country are vastly different in style and size, equipment
available upstage of the plaster line is more or less standard.
An in-depth discussion of the proscenium theatre can be
found in Chapter 2.
Thrust theatres began a surge in popularity in the 1960s
and 70s in an effort to break through to a more “actor friendly”
type of space. It is interesting to note that this type of theatre
was also popular in Elizabethan times, and the reasons for its
success now and then are largely the same. Thrust theatres
are best suited to the production of more intimate dramas.
Plays that depend on the accurate understanding of words
and/or the transmission of intimate emotional moments are
well served by the close proximity of audience and actor found
in thrust theatres.
Generally, the audience seating wraps around three
fourths of the stage area, giving the stage the appearance of
“thrusting out” into the spectators. Since more stage area is
abutting the audience, a large number of seats can be fitted
into a small number of rows. A smaller number of rows
results in audience members being closer to the stage.
The thrust theatre is not without its drawbacks, however, as the layout of the stage leads to some rather difficult
sightline problems. In a proscenium house, the audience
view of the stage is more or less constant throughout the
theatre. Although some seats on the extreme sides have a
somewhat skewed view of the action, the stage retains a kind
of movie-screen quality. In a thrust theatre, the audience
view from the far left is completely the opposite of that from
the far right. Patrons seated at the downstage edge of the
stage see the action from straight ahead. This may lead to
some serious design and/or performance issues.
Most thrust theatres have either a modified proscenium
opening, or some type of architectural staging at the upstage
end of the playing area. This facade is in the center of vision
for those seated downstage, but may not be visible at all for
audience members in the far left and right sections of the
house. Designers must be careful not to place too much
emphasis on scenic units that may be barely visible to a large
portion of the audience. Likewise, care must be taken not to
use visual elements downstage that might block the view of
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THEATRE TYPES 5
persons sitting in that area. Anything such as a wall, or a
refrigerator, or a large wingback chair is certain to annoy anyone who cannot see past it to the action of the play.
Seats in a thrust theatre are generally quite steeply raked
to help alleviate this issue, and as a result the stage floor assumes a much greater focus than is usually found in a
proscenium theatre. Low platforms and other intricate floor
treatments are popular choices in a thrust theatre. Low-mass
scenic elements like lampposts, bentwood chairs, and small
props are also often used in downstage areas. Lighting becomes an extremely crucial element to change the stage picture in the absence of solid physical items.
Theatre in the round is another popular modern form.
As the name suggests, the audience seating wraps entirely
around the stage, eliminating the upstage opening found in
many thrust theatres. Other than the loss of the upstage
facade, the sightline rules are primarily the same for theatres
in the round as they are for thrust theatres.
At this point you might well wonder how actors will be
able to enter the acting space, as there is apparently no backstage area to enter from. A vomitorium entrance can be used
to solve this dilemma. A vomitorium is a passageway under
the audience seating from the backstage space to the stage
itself. They are also popular in thrust theatres, where they
provide a more direct route to the downstage area. “Voms”
are also used to provide entrance to audience seating in stadiums, arenas, and very large proscenium houses.
The black box style of theatre is especially popular with
off-off-Broadway types of theatre groups because of its low
cost, extreme intimacy, and its ability to conform to more
experimental genres of performance. The seating may be set
up to resemble virtually any style of theatre: proscenium,
thrust, in the round, as well as more offbeat arrangements
such as stadium (in which the performance area is flanked on
two sides by seating, as in a football stadium). Or it may be
truly flexible, allowing the performance area to flow in and
around the seating (or standing) area. Audience members in
this latter concept may move from place to place during the
performance, blurring the dividing line into performance art.
Scenic elements become less important in black box theatres,
although lighting, props, and sound retain a great deal of
influence.
Another form of theatre space is the black box or flexible seating theatre. Either of these names is actually quite
descriptive. This type of theatre is generally housed in a large,
black, rectilinear room. Audience seating chairs may be moved
around and set up in whatever configuration is desired. Risers are often used to facilitate better sightlines. Some theatres actually have bleacher seats that can be moved around
the space.
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Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science
All rights reserved
www.focalpress.com
Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science
All rights reserved