Theatre of the Oppressed

Zane Grey Theatre Complete Season One

Theatre

I’d like to begin by differentiating postmodern theatre from its preceding periodizing categorization, the ‘classical’ and the ‘modern’ drama. Classical drama is characterized by the value placed in the plot and its adherence to Aristotle’s laws of dramatic unities. In the nineteenth century we also observed how Hegelian philosophy filtered into modern drama with the movement of ‘man’/character at the forefront of dramaturgy in the character dramas of Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekov. We also see how Aristotle’s mimesis is taken to the heights in the period of naturalism as influenced by the Darwinian science in the stagings of modern theatre. Raymond Williams observes the perfection of tragedy in modern drama where the alienated predicament of the human being in a highly industrialized world is highlighted. He sees Beckett’s tragicomedies representing the reduction and degradation of the human beings in a new absurdist dramatic structure.

To Elinor Fuchs, it is in the postmodern theatre that we witness the “death of the character” and the eradication of the plot. In this statement we are reminded of Barthes’ announcement of the “death of the author”, Foucault stating the “death of man” and Lyotard hailing the dissolution of metanarratives. As rigid categorization and structures of modernism collapse, eclecticism now characterizes postmodernism. But unlike Jameson’s notion of pastiche and extreme consumerism of multi-national capitalism, critical postmodern theatre derives its theory from the post-structuralists’ insight on semiotics. De Saussure laid bare the very construction of the human language exposing its structure of signs and codes. Taking off from this, Derrida’s analysis of the subjectivity of man’s meaning-making has furthered the invalidation of metanarratives. Now as the validity of the sign-signified and code-meaning constructs of languages are put into question, postmodernists are forced to investigate the language construction itself. Ultimately, we come to realize that meaning and signification is subjective and should be contextualized. With this, categorizing boundaries set by modernism collapse as well.

How do all these reflect in postmodern theatre?

Raymond Williams notion of the theatre convention explains this. Conventions in theatre according to Raymond Williams are methods such as figurative speech, stage blocking, songs or dance through which specific dramatic objectives are achieved. He pointed out how conventions in the theatre whether, performative techniques or literary devices, are characterized by its acceptability by the audience and its relations to the specific given standards. With this, he stressed the fact how dramatic conventions are maintained as “terms upon which author, performers and audience agree to meet, so that the performance may be carried on.” Nicole Boireau expounded on the concept of dramatic conventions through the Hamletesque metaphor of the ‘Mousetrap’. From this, he claims that the truth can be accessed through the world of illusion; that it is only through theatricality that truth can be revealed. Theatre expresses reality through the use of artificial conventions. He explained that only through the reflective nature of drama and the dramatic conventions that truths presented in drama are validated . It is then through the same dramatic and theatrical conventions set as the medium in expressing truths, that the expressed truths can be validated. It is through the limitations and self-confined means of definition can the expressed truths substantiate.

Williams and Boireau’s explanation is a profound manifestation of structuralist and post-structuralist concept of laying bare language and systems of signs and codes. Although rooted in the Classical and Modern Theatre tradition, this is a postmodern realization of what Linda Hutcheon calls the self-reflexive nature of postmodern theatre.

With the dissolution of a ‘universal’ language, postmodern theatre is but provoked to look into historical and cultural contexts for a language to articulate itself. The same characteristic is seen in other art forms. Postmodern choreographers made dances about dance, inquiring on the very core of movement vocabularies that gave birth to choreographical works on walking, skipping, etc. This is also true in the experimentations on the various dance styles seen in Twyla Tharp’s combinations of jazz, ballet and ballroom. In the Philippines, this is seen in Agnes Locsin’s and Alice Reyes’ fusion of jazz and ballet and Philippine folk and ethnic movements. Postmodern architects see the history of architectural design as a diverse source of signs to be combined and recombined, thus Greek columns, Art Deco ornamentation and Modern Industrial materials are eclectically put together in a single building.

Postmodern theatre sees the various cultural and historical traditions as a vast source of signs. Kaye describes how postmodernism sees history as a store of signs available for postmodern theatre practice. In a recent production of Hamlet in Singapore, Hamlet was shown as a Noh actor Ophelia as a Balinese dancer. Or in the recent staging of Dulaang Habi’s musical Sa Kaharian ng Araw, audiences are taken into an seemingly incoherent worlds of a cabaret/rock concert, a Peking opera stage, and an extremely expressionistic theatrical world. The music is a mixture of Broadway influenced pop and rock songs, and fusion of classical and traditional Filipino ethnic and folk music. In the postmodern theatre, representations in acting style, costumes, production design, music and other elements are taken from different contexts.

With the collapse of the modernist boundaries, postmodern theatre takes on pluralism and multiplicity in style, approach and over-all process. This has been reflected in various approaches to production. Another important postmodern theatre practice is the use of inter-text, or what Jameson calls a culture of quotations, where various texts could be used to comment on each other. Such is in a production of Romeo and Juliet, where the play ends with the closing monologue by Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Nick Pichay’s musical version of the Oyayi ng Ulan, the character Dugong complained about the accumulating garbage in the ocean. He remarked that the worst kind of garbage is the postmodern poetry of new poets- which of course includes Pichay himself.

With the similar collapse of the modernist notion of Aristotle’s linearity and the Hegelian logic of cause and effect, postmodern theatre is characterized by multi-dimensionality and simultaneity. A simplified example of this is Maria Irene Fornes’s Fefu and Her Friends where the audiences are divided into groups to see different scenes of the play happening in various places. Or in the seashore scene of the 2002 staging of Sa Kaharian ng Araw, past and present converge with the appearance of Paolo’s deceased parents in the same stage where Paolo lovingly recalls them. On the same space in the stage an actor fishes on one side, while another plays with a rain stick, while other actors waiting for their cue sit attentively on chairs onstage. Here, multi-dimensionality and simultaneity is not just seen in how the plot is (dis)arranged. Even the actors playing the characters go through different dimensions of performance and representation in the same time and space. The actor although dressed up for the character he is to portray sits on a chair on the side waiting for his cue, substantiate both as the actor and as the character. The person exist as both the actor and character simultaneously but in different dimensions – where at one point, while he waits for his cue he essentially is not part of the play but simultaneously, physically and intentionally, he is physically there.

As Fuchs sees the diminution of character and plot in postmodern theatre, she sees the other theatrical elements taking on equal importance with these elements. She sees that “each signifying element – lights, visual design, music, etc., as well as plot and character elements – stand to some degree as independent actor.” She pointed out that the Aristotelian elements survived but their classical and modern structural hierarchies ceased to operate. This attitude in theatre production takes its roots from the Brechtian Epic Theatre. Brecht earlier on said: “Today we see the theatre being given absolute priority over actual plays. The theatre apparatus’s priority is a priority of means of production… The Theatre can stage anything; it theatres it all” (Raymond Williams, p.280).

And as postmodern theatre see the “death of the author” (the playwright), the director now takes the central role as the theorist responsible for creating the language of a production.

Postmodern theatre is also differentiated from the modern theatre with its mode-of-production. The Industrial Revolution and the idea of mass-production and the division-of-labor affected music and theatre production. The symphony orchestra and the opera are megalomaniac inventions of modernism. The eighteenth century symphony captured the massive sound of modernism. Here music is produced by a big group of musicians who are divided into sections. The opera is an even bigger modernist creation. Such massive theatre production requires a complex web of ‘workers’/artists who work as a big company that include an orchestra, singers, dancers, clothes-makers, carpenters, etc. Even the art-products are now produced for mass consumption. While music used to be performed in courts and chambers, the symphony and the opera are staged in large opera houses that sit thousands.

This new paradigm in theatre production calls for a different attitude from the audience as well. In postmodern theatre, Aristotle’s notion of catharsis comes to extreme obscurity in postmodern theatre. Aesthetic experience becomes completely dependent upon the meaning making process. The aesthetic experience that transpires in the postmodern process is closer to Kant’s sublime. Unlike Aristotle’s cathartic drama that succumbs its audience to empathizing attitude towards the mimetic illusion of classical and modern drama, Kant states that distance is necessary in achieving aesthetic pleasure. Brecht in turn, proposes ‘complex seeing’ in theatre: “Complex seeing must be practiced… . Thinking above the flow of the play is more important than thinking from within the flow of the play” (Ibid., p281).

In as much as postmodern theatre is required to go through a dialogic process of taking theory into practice and back to theory for it to be able to express itself, postmodern audience then is also called to go through this process of meaning-making. Here, postmodern theatre forces its audience to always take on a critical stance in watching. Language-creation and meaning-making in postmodern theatre is never a simple one-on-one correspondence mode of cognition. With a wary stance towards subjectivity of language, postmodern productions then are manifested with recurring disruptions in its audience’s cognitive process. John Orr sees this as intentional dis-recognition/mis-recognition and he notes that these are often used as dramatic-shock effects. The audience is provoked to figure out what is ‘menacing’ and ’strange” in familiar objects onstage and they are prodded to “translate back the strangeness, as a performed disguise of the metonymic, into something they truly recognize, knowing there is no complete translation” (John Orr, p.32) .

In the elusive nature of postmodernism as a theory, DiGaetani sees the importance of having a terminology that can serve as a handle. He noted that “it is wonderful to have a term like postmodernism to describe the art” (John DiGaetani, p. xv). To Fuchs, the theatre has indeed what we can call now postmodern and she asserts that the sooner we grasp its methods we are “immediately at a better vantage point from which to view what used to be called ‘avant-garde’ theatre” (Elinor Fuchs, p.171).

Works Cited:

Boireau, Nicole. Drama in Drama. Macmillan Press: London, c.1997. John DiGaetani. The Search for Postmodernism: Interviews with Contemporary Playwrights. Greenwood Press: New York, 1991. Elinor Fuchs . Death of the Character. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c.1996 John Orr. Tragicomedy and Contemporary Culture. Hong Kong: Macmillan Academic and Professional, Ltd., 1991 Raymond Williams. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Oxford University Press: New York, 1969 c. 1968.

Theatre: Brief Version

“If the world were like the movies

we would never make mistakes

we’d correct our little blunders

and select our better takes”

- From the 1982 film

“My Favorite Year”

The shows I’m reviewing this week, “The School for Scandal” and “The Altar Boyz,” are a mixed bag of entertainment pluses and minuses. While each show has a lot going for it, each has a way to go or grow, depending on how you look at it.

The Role Players Ensemble Theatre in Danville is presenting a brilliantly clever restoration comedy, “The School for Scandal,” by the articulate author, renowned orator and British parliamentarian, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

First produced in 1777, Sheridan’s marvelous play affectionately satirizes the fashionable society of the wealthy class, with its overt materialism, gossip and hypocrisy. His story takes place within an elitist social circle whose members’ favorite pastime seems to favor finding someone to defame, ridicule or malign through carefully constructed falsehoods and/or innuendo. These individuals focus their primary interests into devising secret, cunning and complicated schemes, all to achieve a particular goal or to cause harm to others, often for their own personal gain or pure entertainment. These egregious character-slayers comprise many layers in “School for Scandal.”

This is a complicated play and certainly a very ambitious play for community theater

There are 15 diversely comic and intriguing characters in this farcical story about sibling rivalry, love, lust, fidelity, infidelity and artificial relationships. The characters are given names that in some small way describe some aspect of their character, such as Snake Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mrs. Candor, Mr. Crabtree, Sir Peter Teazle and Lady Teazle, Moses and the Surface Brothers.

The plot is blunt. Practically everyone has something to glean by mischievous and treacherous means.

Director Sue Trigg has done an excellent job of selecting cast members capable of providing full meaning to their characters. This play is an outrageous farce, a grand comedy and for the most part it is carried off very well. The language is “stately English” and at times is difficult to capture, for lack of familiarity.

It was not until I went online to review the actual script that I fully grasped some of the relationships. The play opens with two of the lesser support characters plotting to spoil Charles Surface’s character. It is here where we begin to grasp that there is a circle of socializers who gather routinely to pander in slander, to gossip and trade “delicious” tales out of context, fabrications and fornications of the truth.

Lady Sneerwell wants to damage a budding relationship between Charles Surface and Sir Peter Teazle’s ward, Maria, because she had at one time been in a relationship with Charles and doesn’t want him to marry this beautiful younger woman. Sir Peter Teazle has a much younger wife, who has romantic aspirations toward Charles’ brother, Joseph. While Joseph pretends to have similar inclinations toward Lady Teazle, he does so in order to get back at his brother, Charles, because he also lusts after the attractive young Maria.

Intrigue after intrigue compound the relationships, especially that of a wealthy uncle of the brothers, Sir Oliver Surface. He arrives on the scene incognito to determine the true character of his nephews, to help him decide who is the most worthy to inherit his estate when he dies. Sir Oliver Surface is played by Chris Chapman. Lady Teazle is played by Kathryne Davidson, Maria by Xanadu Bruggers, Mrs. Candor by Melynda Kiring, Mr. Crabtree by Candy Campbell (a lady who plays an older man very well), Moses by Elias D. Protopsaltis, Rowley by Michael Green, Careless by Jill Davidson, Snake and Sir Benjamin Backbite by Paul Plain and the stalwart servant by Joel Stefani.

Sir Peter Teazle (John Blytt) acknowledges his uneven and contradictory friendship with his deceased friend’s sons, the brothers Joseph Surface (Michael Sally), and Charles Surface (Craig Eychner). He believes Joseph to be the epitome of virtue and honor, while he believes Charles to be the opposite in character, the epitome of personal corruption and deplorable financial carelessness. He wishes that his young ward, Maria, would find Joseph an acceptable suitor for her hand in marriage, over her obviously romantic admiration for the more colorful and more handsome Charles Surface.

As the play develops, we quickly discover that brother Joseph Surface is a two- faced individual. Lady Snearwell describes him thus, “I have found him out a long time since. I know him to be artful, selfish and malicious-in short, a sentimental knave; (but) while with Sir Peter, and indeed with all his (general) acquaintance, he passes for a youthful miracle of prudence, good sense, and benevolence.”

I enjoyed the play very much and laughed at times. I did find fault with some aspects, but not enough to belabor any specific points. It was obvious that the play fell shallow on some ears. This is a long play, too long without a full professional cast. The first act was hard to sit through, but the second act moved much better. On the whole, the production never quite came together.

While every member of the cast contributes significantly to this production, the following actors deserve “outstanding” kudos for their efforts: Michael Sally, Melynda Kiring and Craig Eychner.

This humorous restoration comedy plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. through Saturday, May 10, in the Community Center Theater at 420 Front Street in Danville.

Tickets may be purchased by calling 314-3400 or 314-3463, or online at www.villagetheatreshows.com, or in person at the Community Center, 420 Front Street, in Danville. Tickets are a reasonable $22 to $25 each.

“Altar Boyz” at the Willows

The Willows “Cabaret” Theatre in Martinez is carrying forward the little theater’s theater of Catholicism with another musical that will be appreciated by anyone with a personal history closely aligned with Catholic experiences. This cabaret-style theatre is presenting the Off-Broadway musical, “Altar Boyz.”

This is a venue where the audience sits at small tables where they can order drinks and snacks to enjoy during the show.

This upbeat, modern religious rock musical professes no one specific religious point of view. It must have been penned by someone with a great knowledge of Catholic ritual and rhetoric. “Altar Boyz” tells the inspiring, upbeat story of five guys from small-town USA who are drawn together in their quest to “save souls.” They form a singing, dancing company that travels town to town, like a comic revival show, seeking to inspire, cajole, convert and re-commit a sagging religious following among the young; to seek out and embrace Jesus as their savior. They make fun of religion, but not too offensively.

With songs such as “Jesus Called Me on My Cell Phone” and “Girl You Make Me Want to Wait,” the verbal message is loud and clear, but their sinfully terrific dancing, suggestive body language and straight street talk are modern and in touch with today’s hip overtures.

The musical is youthful, exuberant and exciting, tuning the audience into their party-exhilaration wavelength before the evening is over. The songs include the terrific “Rhythm in Me,” “Church Rulez,” “Something About You,” “Everybody Fits,” “La Vida Eternal” and “I Believe,” to mention a few. The songs relate to issues in the boy’s lives as well as issues that many audience members must have found relative as well. The audience was enthusiastic and appreciative. The lyrics are clever and fun.

Director and Choreographer Mickey Nugent has brought together five unique young men that include Kenneth Scott as Matthew, Bobby Bryce as Mark, Michael Scott Wells as Luke, Rod Voltaire Edora as Juan and Herbie Raad as Abraham. The musical director, Carl Pantle, provides great accompaniment.

The sound didn’t work for me. It too loud to be comfortable and many lines were walked over or just not delivered clearly. Rod Voltaire Edora who portrayed Juan had such a thick accent that I missed many of his lines entirely. They are all outstanding talented performers, but if you cannot understand them, the show loses much of its punch.

The other problem I have is that the theater seating is just too crowded for comfort. Other guests expressed the same feeling to me. This is a great show, an attractive little venue, but how often does one want to be so crowded that when the young women who serve drinks and snacks (at a fairly hefty price) have to shove their way past you so that they can reach other patrons.

If you sit near the aisle, you continually have to move your chair even closer to an already uncomfortably small table and other guests, so much so that it disturbed my enjoyment of the show and its hardworking performers. This is not good. One reason I don’t often go back to this theater to review shows is that the experience of the theater itself is basically the same, and that’s a shame! The whole concept is a great idea, if they just didn’t try to squeeze so many people in.

“Altar Boyz” continues Wednesdays at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30, Fridays at 8, Saturdays at 2 and 8, with Sunday performances at 3, now through May 11.

The Willows Cabaret “Campbell” Theatre is located at 636 Ward Street in Downtown Martinez, one block east of Main Street at the corner of Estudillo Street. Call 798-1300 for tickets or visit the Willows Web site at www.willowstheatre.org. Tickets range between $20 and $30 each with discounts for seniors.

When the theatre first opened on Oct. 15, 1930, the super-cinema was called the New Victoria Cinema and played a George Arils film in Old English, which was based on a John Galsworthy stage play. The Apollo Victoria was equipped with a theatre organ, which was played opening night by Reginald Foort. Aside from the films shown, the theatre also offered variety shows to the public. Soon after the theatre’s opening, the management diminished the number of variety shows and began to specialize in film showings and the occasional performance by big bands. In June 1939, the cinema became one of three sites in London used to present The Epsom Derby in live, experimental transmissions.

The theatre closed temporarily, due to World War II, from September 1940 to May 1941, but did not suffer any serious damage and reopened quickly thereafter. In the 1950’s, plans were made to demolish the theatre, but these plans fell through the venue was used for a combination of live shows, films, and ballet.
Live at the Orange Peel and Tennessee Theatre
In November 1975, the cinema played its final show, a double showing of “Legend of the Werewolf,” starring Peter Cushing, and “Vampire Circus,” starring Adrienne Corri. The theatre was closed after this showing, and underwent extensive renovations. It reopened in 1981, renamed the Apollo Victoria Theatre, and specialized in presenting concerts, the first of which was performed by Shirley Bassey. Other musical acts shown during the early 1980’s include Bucks Fizz, Dean Martin and Liza Minelli. During this time, the theatre also began staging musical theatre performances.

Theatrical performances in the last two-and-a-half decades or so include “The Sound of Music,” which ran from Aug. 17, 1981, to Sept. 18, 1982; “Camelot,” running from November 1982 to February 1983; “Fiddler on the Roof,” which ran from June to October 1983; 1984’s “Starlight Express,” a show which required the theatre to undergo interior modification to allow roller-skating performers to skate through the audience, running for an extremely successful 18 years; Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Bombay Dreams” in 2002; “Saturday Night Fever,” shown in 2004, “Movin’ Out,” a musical based on the songs of Billy Joel, in 2006; and Stephen Schwartz’s “Wicked,” which is playing currently and which began its run Sept. 27, 2006. “Wicked,” has proven to be exceptionally successful for the theatre, as it pulled in £761,000, a record-breaking amount, during the first eight performances of the show and has, to date, grossed more than £50 million in London.

Author:
If you fancy visiting the Apollo Victoria Theatre or buying London Theatre Tickets visit the website.

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The first major stage of making a successful application to drama school is finding the performing arts training programme which is best suited to you at this time. Focus on your current performance skills and your career aspirations. For example, if you can sing and act but not dance and you want to be a ‘triple-threat’ musical theatre performer, don’t apply for a course which has a crucial dance component. Instead, I would recommend finding a one-year foundation level course which will help you to develop your dance skills or focussing on your singing and acting skills and finding a courses which just focuses on these disciplines.

Once you have done your homework into the courses which suit your skills, requirements and career aspirations, you can think about submitting your application forms. In my experience, the people who apply for ten or even more courses in the same year are less successful overall than those who focus on three or four applications. So I recommend narrowing your choices down to the courses which you think are most suited to you at this time and then focussing on submitting excellent application forms for these institutions.

Your application form should be completely truthful about the skills and experience you have in the performing arts – any enhancement of the truth will be spotted as soon as you start to perform at audition. Your opportunity to impressive the admissions team reading your application form is in your personal statement. Spend time getting this right – it’s really important! Make sure you demonstrate your reliability, commitment to the arts and strong work ethic which are important traits of all performing arts students. In addition, you should highlight special performances and projects you have done and, importantly, indicate why this has made you a stronger performer. Unique performance skills are also worth mentioning even when applying for the more traditional drama schools.

When you get your audition date, begin preparing right away. Don’t leave it to last minute and make your decisions about your monologues and singing repertoire quickly so you can get to work on them. Seek advice on your monologue and song choices to make sure you are not only presenting the most suitable material for you but also for the drama school you are applying to.

For more advice and guidance to help you make a successful application to drama school, register free at MyStageDoor.co.uk. Register today and get free access to training tips, leading advice for the performing arts, industry news, info on events in your area and the opportunity to meet other like-minded performers.
High School Musical

Author:
Maxwell David is one of London\’s leading performing arts specialists and Co-Founder of MyStageDoor.co.uk, the platform for aspiring performers. Aspiring performers can register free at mystagedoor.co.uk and get unlimited access to training tips, career advice for the performing arts, info on events in their area, industry news and the opportunity to meet other like-minded performers.

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When it comes to booking theatre tickets it is quite the other story, people seldom like to stand in long lines that could go on virtually for an hour and wait their turn at the ticket counter. When they do reach the window they find that the seats they wanted so much have been taken up by someone else already. This can create a lot of frustration.
Theatre Ticket Album
However there is another alternative to buying theatre tickets. You can check out theatre tickets online, you will find that you can save time, the hard work and the frustration. You can pay online through the credit card. You can also check out other time and venue where the theatre program is being performed. This way you can find out the appropriate day when the theatre program will take place and which you can visit.

If you are worried about whether or not you will be able to find out the place you want to sit at, you can check out the charts where they will let you know the rate of each seating arrangement. You will also know the seating arrangement. If there are smaller children going to go with you, the seats should be such which they find comfortable.

Many a times, there are some of the world’s most renowned events taking place at the theatre at such times booking theatre tickets online can prove to be a great boon, this way you will be able to find proper place and book tickets well in advance before the charts close down. such tickets could be a little expensive, therefore, you may need to shell out a little more money than you pay for the local artists and theatre groups.
American Girl Molly Emily Movie Theatre Seats Popcorn Licorice tickets
There are many theatre groups performing world wide, therefore, you would want to know which one is performing near you place and when if you are interested in a particular group. This information can be provided to you by the websites that sell online tickets. Subscribing to their newsletter will help you know all the upcoming theatre performances. You can also check out which one you can attend. You can check out favorite theatre groups and dramas and plan accordingly to enjoy theatre.

If you do not want the newsletter to continue you can cancel it, this process is easy. Theatre tickets can also be given away as gifts to people near to you, if you are aware of the person’s favorites you can choose and pick your gift. Gifting theatre tickets to some premium performances will make your gift a most memorable event for that person.

Author:
Online Ticket Agency selling tickets to events nationwide. Visit http://www.warehousetickets.net

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The first incarnation of the theatre came to light after the Puritan Interregnum, which was an 11-year ban on “frivolous” pastimes, including theatre. It opened May 7, 1663, and was known as the “King’s Playhouse” by many. The original building was a wooden structure made of three tiers, 112 feet long and 59 feet wide. At maximum capacity, it could hold 700 patrons. The performances during this time typically took place around 3 p.m. in order to make use of the daylight. There was no roof over the audience pit, which oftentimes left those attending plays at the mercy of the elements.
Live at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane
When the first theatre was destroyed by fire in 1672, the second theatre, named the “Theatre Royale in Drury Lane,” opened in 1794. This theatre lasted almost 120 years but was demolished in 1791 to make room for a bigger theatre, which opened in 1794. This theatre only lasted 15 years, as it also burned down in 1809.

The theatre building still existing today opened on Oct. 10, 1812. It seats about 2,237 people which, despite still being considered a large theatre, makes it approximately 550 seats smaller than the previous building.

Since its opening, it has been visited by Shakespearean actors, comedians, musical composer and performers and even the Monty Python comedy troupe, who recorded a concert album there. World War II forced the theatre to temporarily close and during the war, the theatre was used as headquarters for the Entertainments National Service Association. Although the theatre suffered minor bomb damage, it reopened in 1946 with Noel Coward’s “Pacific 1860.”

Since the war, it has produced mainly musical theatre, including several Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals including “Oklahoma!” In 1946, “South Pacific” in 1951 and “The King and I” in 1953. Other productions have included “My Fair Lady,” which had a five-year run beginning in 1958; “42nd Street” from 1984 to 1989; Miss Saigon from 1989 to 1999; and, more recently, “The Producers,” which closed in January 2007; a musical adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings,” which closed July 19, 2008; and “Oliver!” which began directly after the closing of “The Lord of the Rings.” The Drury Lane theatre is currently owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It is often referred to as one of the world’s most haunted theatres. One of the most famous spirits alleged to haunt the theatre is that of the “Man in Grey,” a man whose skeleton was found in a walled-up room in 1848. Other supposed ghosts within the theatre include the spirits of comedian Joe Grimaldi and actor Charles Macklin.

Author:
If you fancy some tickets for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane or any other London Theatre Tickets visit the website.

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