The Definition, Nature, and Scope of Theater Theater (from the Greek verb theasthai, "to view" or "to see," whence theatron, or "seeing place") may be defined not only as a structure in which dramatic performances are given, but as the sum of all the arts required for the production of a dramatic, or imitative, action. These include \Tacting\t, theatrical \Tcostume and makeup\t, \Tdirecting\t, SCENOGRAPHY, \Tstage lighting\t, theater architecture (see \Ttheater architecture and staging\t), machinery and special effects, and dramaturgy or playwriting (see \Tdrama\t). Theater is an eclectic art form, often employing music and dance in its productions as well as the talents of leading artists from outside the theater. Other mimetic performing arts, such as \Topera\t and \Tballet\t, are closely related to the theater, the principal distinctions being that opera consists of song and musical dialogue throughout, whereas ballet is an art of rhythmic movement precisely timed to music. With these reservations in mind, the following essay concentrates on the evolution of the theater in different periods and cultures. Origins of the Theater The theater originated in the cultures of primitive societies, whose members, it is thought, used imitative dances to propitiate the supernatural powers that were believed to control events crucial to their survival. A shaman, priest, or medicine man (in effect, the first director) taught complicated dance steps and led these ritual dance-dramas--to persuade or compel supernatural forces to regulate the seasons and elements, to ensure the Earth's fertility, and to grant the tribe success in hunting and warfare. Other ritual dances were believed to expel evil spirits that caused disease and to force the souls of the newly dead to depart the world of the living. The priests and performers in these dance-dramas wore \Tmasks\t, which sometimes represented the spirits invoked, and costumes made of skins, rushes, and bark. As knowledge of natural phenomena increased, drama ceased to be exclusively ritualistic and also became an educational tool, especially in initiation ceremonies that acquainted the young with tribal culture. A later development, more germane to the evolution of the theater and drama of today, was the enactment of legends of gods and tribal heroes. Such dramas were also performed in early civilized societies. In Egypt, for example, dramas dealing with the god Osiris continued to be produced until at least as late as the 5th century BC. Classical Greek and Roman Theater The history of European theater begins with the Greeks, whose annual festivals in honor of the god Dionysus included competitions in \Ttragedy\t and \Tcomedy\t. According to tradition, the first of these dramatic forms evolved from choral songs (choric dithyrambs) concerning the death and resurrection of Dionysus. This occurred about the middle of the 6th century BC, when \TThespis\t of Icaria, in a drama of his own composition, impersonated a character and engaged the chorus in dialogue, thereby becoming both the first playwright and the first actor. Thespis won first prize in the initial tragedy competition held at Athens in 534 BC and is also credited with the introduction of masks, which were thereafter a conventional feature of Greek and Roman theater. The tragedians \TAeschylus\t and \TSophocles\t later added a second and a third actor to tragedy, and about the beginning of the 5th century BC comedy was given written form by Epicharmus of Syracuse and was also admitted to the festivals. The ancient chorus was retained as an integral part of Greek drama and eventually consisted of a standard number of members: 15 in tragedy and 24 in comedy. In a \Tsatyr play\t, a short burlesque that dramatists were expected to submit along with their tragedies, the chorus comprised either 12 or 15 members. All of the roles were played by men; women were not allowed to perform in the Greek theater. The early Greek playwrights not only wrote and frequently acted in their plays but also served as directors and choreographers; some may also have composed their own music (Greek tragedy was intensely musical). Sophocles is said to have been a scene designer and Aeschylus to have invented the tragic costume. Tragic actors wore a tight-sleeved, belted, patterned tunic called a chiton; a variety of cloaks over the chiton; the cothurnus, or tragedian's boot, which in later periods became exaggeratedly elevated by the addition of a wooden platform to the sole; and the helmetlike mask with attached wig, in which the forehead elevation was proportional to the social status of the character represented. Characters in Old Comedy were usually costumed in short chitons heavily padded in front and behind and wore grotesque masks and stuffed phalluses. With the arrival of New Comedy toward the end of the 4th century BC these obscene features were discarded and comic characters became more respectably dressed. The original Greek theater at Athens was simply a large circle known as the orchestra ("dancing place"). Here the choric dithyrambs and early plays of Thespis and Aeschylus were staged, while spectators sat on seats set into the southern slope of the Acropolis. The only scenery consisted of a few set pieces such as tombs and rocks, and it was not until about 460 BC that a skene, or stage building, originally of wood, was added at the rear of the orchestra. The actors then made their entrances and exits through this structure, although the chorus continued to enter from the sides and the acting was still confined to the flat orchestra. A limited amount of scenery, painted on panels attached to the skene, may have been used at this time, and several special effects and machines were available. The last included the eccyclema, or "wheeling out" machine, a wagon or perhaps a turntable on which bloody tableaux were displayed after a murder had occurred in the palace, represented by the skene, and a crane by which actors representing gods could be flown above the stage. The playwright \TEuripides\t was fond of both these devices, and his contemporary \TAristophanes\t ridiculed his use of them in several of his comedies. By the 4th century BC the playwright no longer controlled all aspects of production. The Greek theater had become a professional institution with specialists responsible for the various aspects of theatrical art. In the next two centuries, during the Hellenistic Age, the physical structure of the theater continued to evolve, the most notable innovation being the addition of a raised stage (logeion or "speaking place") to the building, where most of the acting took place. The Romans, whose capital did not possess a permanent theater until 55 BC, also staged their productions on a raised stage before an elaborately decorated stage building and reduced the orchestra, as well as the auditorium, to a semicircle. Unlike the Greeks, however, they rarely set their theaters into hillsides but built freestanding structures that could be covered by huge awnings and are reputed to have seated as many as 40,000 spectators. Within these magnificent buildings both tragedy and comedy--almost entirely derived from Greek models--were performed, as well as a Roman innovation, pantomime (see \Tmime and pantomime\t), in which a single actor, frequently changing masks and accompanied by a large chorus and orchestra, mimed and danced all the roles in the drama. Although early Roman actors were often slaves owned by managers who offered their performers and plays to the magistrates in charge of the ludi, or games, at which drama was presented, later actors like Claudius Aesopus, ROSCIUS, and the pantomimists Pylades and Bathyllus--all of whom flourished in the 1st century BC--were citizens and attained considerable fame and fortune. Far more opportunities existed for dramatic performances in Rome and its territories than in Greece; therefore, Roman actors were able to work a good part of the year. Medieval Theater Unfortunately, later Roman actors did not find favor with the early Christians, who denounced the theater as the "shrine of Venus" (an allusion to the prostitutes who frequented the Roman theater, as well as to its pagan origins) and objected to its parodies of Christian sacraments. Consequently, a barrage of church decrees was directed against the theater and anyone patronizing it, and by the end of the 7th century theatrical entertainments had been extinguished in both the western and eastern Roman Empire. Yet, paradoxically, the church was also responsible for the rebirth of the theater during the Middle Ages, when dramatic performances based on the story of the Resurrection were introduced into the Easter service (see \Tmedieval drama\t). From these little tropes, originally performed by monks and priests, arose the great cycles of mystery plays that dramatized virtually every phase of biblical history. Produced by the various guilds and lay religious brotherhoods, and sometimes by entire communities, these vast cycles occasionally took as many as 25 or even 40 days to perform. They were given outdoors--in town squares, Roman amphitheaters, and sometimes on wagon stages that moved through city streets--and typically made use of a neutral playing area, the platea, on which all of the set pieces and scenic buildings, called "mansions," were arranged in advance. The acting, primarily by amateurs, was realistic, as were the theatrical tricks that included such spectacular effects as flames and smoke belching from Hellmouth, floods of water, massacres with flowing blood, and hangings and crucifixions that often posed serious hazards for the actors. The directors were usually amateurs themselves, although a few were professionals who traveled from city to city. The Renaissance By the mid-16th century the medieval religious theater was in decline, to be shortly succeeded by a revival of secular drama performed by professional acting companies. In England such troupes had been attached to the households of noblemen and the king since the 15th century. At first they performed in halls and inns but eventually in theaters of their own, the first of which--named "The Theatre"--was erected on the outskirts of London in 1576. Other \LElizabethan playhouse\ls, including the Curtain, the Rose, and the famous \LGlobe Theat\ler, followed soon after. In general these theaters were circular or polygonal structures, consisting of a three-story "frame" surrounding an open-air yard. Spectators sat in boxes or galleries within the frame or stood below in the yard, a large portion of which was occupied by a platform stage that was partially protected by a "shadow" or roof. At the rear of the stage was the "tiring house," where the actors dressed and stored their properties. There were two or more entrances to the stage from this building, which also possessed a gallery or upper acting area and, perhaps, an alcove or inner stage, on a level with the platform stage, that could be closed off by a curtain. At the top of the tiring house was the hut, from which a limited amount of machinery was operated. The staging practices in these playhouses were indebted to the medieval theater, with set pieces and mansions continuing in use. The actors' costumes, mainly contemporary and only rarely attempting historical accuracy, were often sumptuous and represented an investment second only to the expense of the playhouse. Elizabethan actors--all of whom were male--were organized under the guild system of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. These troupes were known by the titles of the noblemen or members of the royal family who were their patrons. Thus William \TShakespeare\t and the actor Richard \TBurbage\t, the original interpreter of Hamlet, Othello, and Richard III, were both members of the Lord \TChamberlain\t's MEN, who in 1603 came under the patronage of the king and thereafter were known as the King's Men; while their contemporary Edward \TAlleyn\t, who performed the leading roles in the plays of Christopher \TMarlowe\t, was a member of the rival Lord \TAdmiral\t's MEN, later Prince Henry's Men. Those master actors who pooled their resources to erect the theaters and purchase the costumes and properties required by their companies were also known as "sharers." This was the system adopted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, in which Shakespeare was both a master actor and sharer, although other companies sometimes played in theaters owned by nonactors, like the enterprising Philip HENSLOWE, the father-in-law of Alleyn, who built and managed no less than three theaters. The sharers or managers also bought plays outright from dramatists, who were not entitled to royalties or any additional payments if their works were published. Besides performing in the large public playhouses, Elizabethan actors frequently took their productions to court and, during the winter months, appeared in smaller indoor houses known as "private" theaters. In Spain, where professional actors, led by such legendary figures as Lope de \TRueda\t, also came into their own in the 16th century, the public theaters were owned by religious brotherhoods and municipal governments. Set up in corrales, or large yards between houses, such theaters were similar to those in England. Again there was a platform stage, behind which was a two-story building with both upper and inner acting areas. Spectators, however, occupied rooms (aposentos, or "boxes") in the adjacent houses in addition to sitting on benches or in boxes or standing in the yard. These theaters, originally open to the weather, remained in use until the mid-18th century. In Spain, as in England, all roles were portrayed by males, a convention that persisted until 1587. The actors were under contract to managers, known as autores de comedias, who purchased costumes and plays and hired out their troupes to the lessees of the corrales. The companies were also engaged to perform at annual religious festivals and, especially during the 17th century, at the Spanish court, where productions were heavily influenced by Italian staging practices. During this period, too, Spanish drama experienced its golden age, with such prolific playwrights as Lope de \TVega\t and Pedro \TCalderon de la Barca\t writing hundreds of secular and religious plays. It was in Renaissance Italy, however, that the theater first broke definitively with the medieval tradition. Inspired by descriptions of the ancient Roman theater in the writings of \TVitruvius\t and other Latin authors, the Italian humanists (see \Thumanism\t) deliberately set out to re-create its structure, an endeavor that culminated in the \TTeatro Olimpico\t at Vicenza, designed by the architect Andrea \TPalladio\t and opened in 1585. From their reading, the humanists also learned that the Greeks and Romans had occasionally used illusionistic paintings on their stages and had devised three-sided revolving prisms (periaktoi) to change such scenery--descriptions which led, as early as 1508, to the use of unified, perspective settings and, shortly afterward, to experiments with periaktoi and other methods of changing scenery before the eyes of the audience. A proscenium frame and front curtain then came into use, as did a variety of flying machines and special effects. Because the majority of Renaissance theaters were indoor structures, lighting--supplied by candles and oil lamps--also became an important consideration. The actors in the early Italian theater were usually amateurs. By the mid-16th century, however, they had been supplanted to a great extent by the professional players of the \Tcommedia dell'arte\t who, in addition to the improvised comedies for which they were famous, were equally at home in literary and musical drama. In improvised comedy, the actors appeared as stock characters--Pantalone, Arlecchino, Pulcinella, the Dottore--in standardized costumes and wearing masks, although actors impersonating female servants such as Columbine and the characters of young lovers usually dispensed with the last convention. A notable feature of these companies is that from their inception some seem to have included women. The beautiful Isabella Andreini (1562-1604), who belonged to the troupe known as the Gelosi, was the most celebrated actress of her day and was also a gifted dramatist and poet. Because the commedia players traveled widely and were extremely popular outside Italy, they exerted considerable influence on the theaters of other nations. Their appearance in 16th-century Spain, for example, led to the admission of women to the Spanish companies, and in Paris, where they were known as La \TComedie Italienne\t, they were even given a theater of their own. Baroque and 18th-Century Theater By the early 17th century the Italian theater had given rise to the architectural structure and staging conventions that, with minor variations, have remained in use to the present day. The auditorium itself, as evidenced in opera houses built at Venice and elsewhere, had evolved into a bench-filled "orchestra," or parterre area, before the stage and a series of galleries divided into boxes at the sides and rear of the house. The stage, separated from the auditorium by the familiar proscenium, or "picture frame," was decorated with perspective settings painted on flats, which could easily be changed either by hand or, through a later invention of the designer Giacomo Torelli (1608-78), by an ingenious mechanical system of chariots, ropes, and counterweights. Similar architectural structures and scenic practices were soon adopted throughout Europe, although a few countries, such as England and France, retained vestiges of their earlier platform stages in the shape of "aprons," or forestages, in front of the proscenium. A peculiarity of the early English and American theaters was the presence of two or more doors opening onto the apron. The actors often made their entrances and exits through these--a convention that persisted, as did the apron, until well into the 19th century. It was also customary for more ostentatious spectators to sit on these forestages, often to the annoyance of both the actors, who had to move among them, and the other spectators. The admission of women to both French and English acting companies began during the 17th century. In England, following the accession of Charles II in 1660, the earlier convention of using boy apprentices for female roles was abandoned, and such actresses as Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle appeared in the plays of Thomas Otway and William Congreve. In France the former acrobat Therese du Parc, after starting with \TMoliere\t's troupe, became a leading tragedienne in the plays of Jean \TRacine\t and was followed by the actress known as La Champmesle, who in 1677 created the title role in Racine's Phedre and later became the first leading tragedienne at La \TComedie Francaise\t. These actresses were complemented by such male actors as Thomas Betterton, famed for his naturalness in both tragedy and comedy, and Michel Baron, who was personally trained by Moliere. In addition to salaries or, in some cases, shares in the companies' profits, actors were granted "benefits"--performances from which they were entitled to the profits after the house expenses had been deducted. English playwrights also received benefits after their plays had run a certain number of nights and, like their French colleagues, retained the right to publish their works. As yet there was no professional director, the duties of this office usually falling to one of the principal actors and sometimes to the dramatist. Moliere, who was an actor as well as a playwright, directed the members of his company, and Racine coached the actors in his plays. By the early 18th century a few individuals, like the English playwright Aaron Hill, were urging reform in costume and scenic practices. David \TGarrick\t, possibly the finest actor of the century, attempted historically accurate productions while managing the \TDrury Lane Theatre\t in London from 1747 to 1776. The playwright and actor Charles \TMacklin\t, whose career spanned most of the century, experimented with realistic costumes in his roles of Shylock and Macbeth. In France, actors such as Hippolyte Clairon and the director of the Opera Comique, Charles Simon Favart, initiated similar reforms at their theaters. In general, however, there was no consistent attention paid to such details, settings were mainly of stock types used repeatedly in different plays, and it was not until the 19th century that it became customary to create historically accurate costumes and settings for individual productions. Meanwhile, the American colonial theater--supplied with English actors, English plays, and following English stage practices--had taken its first tentative steps, and in Germany, where English and French influences had dominated during the 16th and 17th centuries, native actors and playwrights had at last come into their own. Spurred on by such figures as Konrad Ekhof (1720-78), known as the father of German acting, and Gotthold Ephraim \TLessing\t, the first German playwright of distinction, both court and municipal theaters experienced a period of unprecedented growth and support by the aristocracy and the emerging middle class. There shortly followed such versatile artists as the actor Friedrich L. Schroder (1744-1816), who directed the Hamburg National Theater during the last third of the century--where he encouraged the young German playwrights who formed the revolutionary \TSturm und Drang\t school of drama and was famous for his productions of Shakespeare--and the actor, playwright, and director August Wilhelm Iffland (1759-1814), who worked at Mannheim and Berlin. At the court theater of Weimar, under the artistic management of Johann Wolfgang von \TGoethe\t during the period 1791-1817, a distinctive style of ensemble acting and unified production known as Weimar Classicism evolved. The actors (and sometimes even the audiences) were carefully disciplined by the autocratic director; costumes and settings were based on historical research; and the plays of Goethe and of his friend Johann Friedrich von \TSchiller\t were splendidly produced. The 18th century was also the last great age of aristocratic theater, particularly in France and the Germanic countries where ballet and opera were supported on a lavish scale. At the court theaters of Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and Bologna, the beautiful settings of the Bibienas (see \TGalli da Bibiena\t family) and their followers often enhanced such productions. Oriental Theater Although it exerted relatively little influence on Western theater, the theater of the Orient has an equally long and illustrious history. Its origins also appear to have been in ritualistic dance-dramas, and to this day dance and music play an important role in the Oriental theater. In the West the theater has most often followed a realistic style of presentation, but the theater of the East remains intensely symbolic, requiring considerable sophistication on the part of its viewers. The actors appear in masks or wear highly artificial, masklike makeup whose appearance and colors indicate the characters' social status and qualities. The design and colors of costumes are equally symbolic; movements and gestures, each of which carries a precise meaning, are carefully choreographed and codified; speech is artificial and often musical; and scenery and stage properties are usually minimal. Indeed, scenery is frequently omitted altogether, and properties are often used to represent a startling variety of locales. In the Chinese theater, for example, a few chairs and a table may be variously arranged to indicate a bridge, a boat, or even a mountain; an actor with a small whip in his hand represents a man on horseback. The earliest Oriental theaters are believed to have been in India, where Sanskrit dramas were produced in temples and at court several centuries before the birth of Christ. The acting area seems to have been a raised platform before a curtain; in place of scenery the actors or a narrator set the stage with dialogue and pantomime. In China, where the distinctive form of theater known as Peking Opera evolved at the end of the 18th century, the stage was originally a roofed platform with two doors at the rear. Stagehands, dressed in black and by convention understood to be invisible, manipulated properties while the drama was in progress. Female roles, at least until recently, were undertaken by males; the actor \TMei Lan-Fang\t, who also performed in the West, was the outstanding interpreter of women in the 20th century. More familiar to contemporary Western audiences, however, is the theater of Japan, where three indigenous forms--No \Tdrama\t, \TBunraku\t, and \TKabuki\t--are still produced and have occasionally been seen in Europe and the United States. The No theater originated in the 14th century and was initially given before aristocratic and priestly audiences. The masked actors are exclusively male and traditionally make their entrances onto the roofed platform stage along a "bridge" or runway at the rear. In Bunraku, all of the actors are puppets, each of whose complicated movements require no less than three expert handlers. It was for this theater that \TChikamatsu\t Monzaemon, the most famous of Japanese playwrights, wrote many of his later dramas. Chikamatsu also wrote for the popular Kabuki theater, which began in the 17th century and borrowed many elements from No and Bunraku. This form of theater, in which dance plays a prominent role and the actors appear in exaggerated makeup, is more realistic in its scenic practices. Traps are used to raise and lower actors and scenery, and in the 18th century rapid shifts of setting became possible with the introduction of the revolving stage--a feature eventually adopted by Western theater. A runway (hanamichi) over which the actors make their entrances is another characteristic feature of the Kabuki playhouse. Unlike the runway in the No theater, however, this connects with the front of the stage and runs through the auditorium from the rear of the house. Another well-known form of Oriental theater, the shadow puppet plays still performed in Indonesia, may have originated in India or China. Toward the end of the 18th century, when they were known as ombres chinoises (see \Tshadow play\t), these plays were introduced to Paris and later, in the 1790s, were shown in London by Philip \TAstley\t, the famous circus proprietor. 19th-Century Theater At the close of the 18th century a number of social and political events wrought profound changes in the European theater. The turmoil of the French Revolution foretold the end of the aristocratic tradition, and the cities, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, now experienced a tremendous swelling of their populations as laborers poured in from the countryside. New forms of drama evolved that reflected these changes, and in London, Paris, and other major cities a host of new theaters appeared to cater to the tastes of working-class audiences who delighted in pantomimes, spectacles, vaudevilles (see \Tmusic hall, vaudeville, and burlesque\t), and--an invention of the playwrights August von \TKotzebue\t and Guilbert de Pixerecourt--melodrama. On a somewhat higher plane romantic drama and revivals of the classics, produced at the major theaters, were performed by such notable actors as Francois Joseph \TTalma\t, Mademoiselles Mars and Duchenois, and \TRachel\t, the famous interpreter of Racine's Phedre, in France; John Philip Kemble (see \TKemble\t family) and his sister Sarah \TSiddons\t, Edmund Kean (see \TKean\t family), and William Charles \TMacready\t were the reigning stars in England. In the United States, which continued to be heavily dependent on Europe for its drama and theater practices during most of the 19th century, the first native actors to achieve international reputations now appeared: the Negro tragedian Ira \TAldridge\t, the brawny Edwin \TForrest\t, Charlotte Saunders \TCushman\t, whose repertoire of roles included Hamlet and Romeo, and Edwin Booth (see \TBooth\t family), who also managed his own theater in New York City. Few innovations in theater architecture were achieved during the 19th century, although lighting and scenic practices experienced numerous changes. By the 1820s gas had replaced candles and oil lamps in many theaters; limelight and the carbon arc for spotlighting effects were in common use by the mid-century; and in 1881, with the opening of the Savoy Theatre in London, the stage was first lit by electricity. Stages became fully trapped (a few, like Booth's New York theater, had hydraulic lifts), and scenery could be raised from below or "flown in" from above the stage. Settings, properties, and costumes attained maximum realism and historical accuracy. The old flats on which scenery had formerly been painted in perspective gave way to elaborate practical settings (changes of setting often required long waits between scenes); the completely enclosed or "box" set came into use for comedies; moving \Tpanoramas\t facilitated spectacular travel effects; even the plays of Shakespeare were now performed with meticulous attention to historical accuracy. Libraries and archives were ransacked to provide authentic sources for designers and costumers; real animals, including dogs, horses, and even elephants, joined the actors; volcanoes erupted, hurricanes toppled mock trees, and ships--as in Shakespeare's Tempest--sank on cue. The "long run" became increasingly common, and the older repertory system--under which theaters had changed their bills almost nightly and a single house might present dozens of new and old plays in a single season--was gradually abandoned. Concurrent with the rise of these elaborately planned productions was the arrival of the modern director, who might still be a leading actor, but was responsible for overseeing every aspect of production and for imposing a unity on the whole. This arrangement also encouraged an ensemble style of acting, in which the actors blended their talents and none starred at the expense of others--or of the play itself. Among the earliest of this new breed in England were the actress, dancer, and singer Madame \TVestris\t, who produced comedies and extravaganzas at her elegant little theater, the Olympic, in the 1830s, and in the 1850s Charles Kean, son of Edmund, who was celebrated for his Shakespearean productions at the Princess's Theatre. Kean was especially noted for his skillful handling of crowd scenes and exerted a profound influence on George II, duke of Saxe-Meiningen, whose own company of German actors toured throughout Europe in the 1870s and 1880s and in turn directly influenced such later directors as Andre \TAntoine\t and Konstantin \TStanislavsky\t. The principles of this style of production--sometimes referred to as the "theater of the regisseur (director)"--are still widely followed, although most present-day directors do not act in their productions. The status of the playwright also improved during the 19th century. At the urging of dramatists such as Dion \TBoucicault\t, who also directed and acted in his popular plays on both sides of the Atlantic, \Tcopyright\t laws were enacted to protect authors' rights, and dramatists now became entitled to royalties. By the final decades of the 19th century a number of playwrights had tired of the romantic claptrap and artificial dramas of their predecessors. Seeking to give a truer depiction of life, these authors--Emile \TZola\t, Henrik \TIbsen\t, and Gerhardt \THauptmann\t among them--founded the naturalistic school of drama. Because their controversial works were forbidden in the commercial theaters of most countries, it became necessary to establish subscription theaters, which were nominally private and thus beyond the control of official censors. From this necessity sprang the Independent Theater movement, the first of whose theaters, the Theatre Libre in Paris, was founded by Andre Antoine in 1887. Die \Tfreie Buhne\t in Berlin and the Independent Theater (1891) in London followed a few years later. As even newer schools of drama appeared on the scene, playwrights continued to find outlets for their works in theaters that pursued artistic rather than commercial objectives. In 1898 the \TMoscow Art Theater\t--famous above all for its productions of Anton \TChekhov\t--was founded by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Ivanovich \TNemirovich-Danchenko\t, and in 1907 the expressionist author August \TStrindberg\t opened the Intima Teatern in Stockholm, where he presented his own plays. Meanwhile, even the classical repertory was undergoing an intensive reevaluation. In 1894 the English director William \LPoe\ll founded the Elizabethan Stage Society, whose productions of Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists broke with the 19th-century tradition of realistic staging and attempted to re-create the conventions and architectural arrangements of Shakespeare's day--an approach that is still followed at numerous Shakespeare festival theaters. 20th-Century Theater At the turn of the 19th century a number of designers were also calling for a break with older traditions. Both Gordon \TCraig\t and Adolphe \TAppia\t argued for settings and lighting that were suggestive and expressive of the mood of the drama rather than realistic. Their ideas have influenced many later theater artists--in the United States the most eminent has been Robert Edmond \TJones\t--although no particular school of design can be said to predominate at the present day. Indeed, 20th-century stage designs have included both the most elaborately detailed naturalistic settings and stages devoid of anything but a few essential properties, not to mention the bizarre constructivist (see \Tconstructivism\t) settings created in the 1920s for the Russian director Vsevolod Emilievich \TMeyerhold\t, who expected his actors to physicalize their emotions and to perform within playgroundlike settings as gymnasts and acrobats. The Italianate proscenium-frame stage--an object of scorn to avant-garde directors--remains entrenched in the majority of theaters, but the Renaissance acting platform has reemerged as the "thrust stage," and a few experimental theaters have used arena staging or \Ttheater in the round\t--an innovation whose antecedents can be traced to the theaters of prehistory. The eclecticism that pervades the 20th-century theater is perhaps best summarized in the international career of the Austrian director Max \TReinhardt\t, who worked in an amazing variety of locales that included large and small theaters with and without proscenium frames, cabarets, churches, royal palaces and riding schools, the converted Circus Schumann in Berlin, and even outdoor settings such as the Hollywood Bowl and the square before the cathedral in Salzburg, Austria. (In the 1930s, Reinhardt also directed a few films in Hollywood.) The playwrights whose works he produced ranged from Sophocles through Shakespeare and Calderon to such modern writers as Frank Wedekind and Luigi Pirandello. Each production received its own unique style and scenic treatment, with the latter often incorporating the latest technical developments, including the revolving stage and plaster domes or cycloramas behind and above the stage. As with design, architecture, and theatrical direction, there is no dominant style of acting in the 20th century. \Tmethod\t acting, derived from Stanislavsky's teachings, has been found useful by many directors and actors in naturalistic productions (see \TActors Studio\t, and Lee \TStrasberg\t), but it is also recognized that deliberately artificial styles are more appropriate to the works of dramatists outside the realistic tradition. Bertolt \TBrecht\t--whose theories of production have perhaps been more influential than those of anyone else in the second half of the century--always insisted that actors in his plays remain aware of the fact that they were acting and that they not surrender their personalities to the characters they were impersonating. The play itself and the social message it contained were to be of paramount interest; the spectators were to be continually reminded that they were viewing a theatrical event so that they would not sympathize with the characters as real-life figures and thereby allow their critical judgment to be clouded by emotion. Lest the actors themselves prove incapable of such detachment, Brecht employed a number of devices to "alienate" his audiences from any illusions of reality that might endanger their objectivity. His plays were presented as historical rather than as immediate events; projected captions were used to inform spectators in advance what they were to witness in a forthcoming scene; musical numbers and humorous episodes were inserted to undercut serious ones; lighting and sets were nonrealistic; even the stagehands' activities were visible. Both realistic and nonrealistic traditions of production flourish in the contemporary theater. While the former appears to be favored by the majority of Western playgoers, the latter has nevertheless become increasingly acceptable as 20th-century spectators have gained greater sophistication through exposure to the plays and production styles of other nations and periods. Although audiences may not approve, neither are they apt to be surprised when such revolutionary groups as the \TLiving Theatre\t, taking their cue from the theories of Brecht, not only seek to arouse their audiences to some social action but deliberately go out of their way to embarrass and insult them, or when a director such as Peter \TBrook\t, in a variation of the Chinese theater, introduces acrobatics and juggling into a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The theater, as these experiments serve to remind us, continues to be an evolving institution--as viable, as exciting, and sometimes as controversial as it was in the days of Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Ibsen. A. H. Saxon Bibliography: Arnott, Peter, The Theater in Its Time (1981); Berthold, Margot, A History of World Theater, trans. by Edith Simmons (1972); Bogard, Travis, American Drama (1978); Braun, Edward, The Director and the Stage (1982); Brockett, Oscar G., History of the Theatre, 3d ed. (1977); Cheney, Sheldon, The Theatre: Three Thousand Years of Drama, Acting and Stagecraft, rev. ed. (1952); Freedley, George, and Reeves, John A., A History of the Theatre, 3d ed. (1968); Gascoigne, Bamber, World Theatre: An Illustrated History (1968); Kernodle, George R., From Art to Theatre: Form and Convention in the Renaissance (1944); Macgowan, Kenneth, and Melnitz, William, The Living Stage: A History of the World Theatre (1955); Nagler, A. M., A Source Book in Theatrical History (Sources of Theatrical History) (1952); Nicoll, Allardyce, The Development of the Theatre: A Study of Theatrical Art from the Beginnings to the Present Day, 5th ed. (1966); Oenslager, Donald, Stage Design: Four Centuries of Scenic Invention (1975); Roberts, Vera M., On Stage: A History of Theatre, 2d ed. (1974); The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, ed. by Phyllis Hartnoll, 4th ed. (1983); Simonson, Lee, The Stage Is Set, rev. ed. (1963); Wickham, Glynne, The Medieval Theatre (1974).