However, with a fabulous music and lyrics given by Stephen Schwartz and musical staging done by Wayne Cilento, “Wicked” wouldn’t have been better! The story is based on Gregory Maguire’s best selling novel. The story talks about the life of two girls, who meet in Oz before the entry of Dorothy.

One of them has an emerald green skin with smart and fiery looks. She is largely misunderstood. The other one is pretty, highly ambitious, and popular. Wicked follows the two young women, who are completely different from each other. One of them becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, while the other turns into Glinda, the Good witch. The story has many new as well as familiar characters to watch out for.

The show stars Julia Murney in the role of Elphaba; Kendra Kassehaum plays the role of Glinda, the good witch; Lenny Wolpe can be seen as The Wizard; Sebastian Arcelus plays the role of Fiyero; Jane Houdyshelll performs beautifully as Madame Morrible; Cristy Candler is Nessarose; Logan Lipton can be seen as Boq; and Steven Skybell is Doctor Dillamond in the story. The entire star cast has displayed a remarkable performance, thus, contributing to its phenomenal success.

This show is prohibited for children below 4 years of age. Although, the show is free of sexual depictions, there are a few adult themes that might not be appropriate for children. The show runs for 2 hours and 45 minutes, yet, you never feel bored a single second. In fact, you hardly remember to glance at your watch! As the mystery of the two witches unfolds, you are spell bound by the picturization and action happening on stage. The most interesting part of the story is when they show how the two girls turn into completely different witches!

The entire Land of Oz comes to life on the stage! You are gripped by the charisma of each character and can hardly escape! If you want to experience the thrill of spending time with witches, then book your tickets fast through phone or internet. The best place to watch “Wicked” is from the front row seats! How close you are to the magical land, the land where there is good as well as evil magic, where the witches are fiery, ambitious, beautiful, and popular!

There is something in “Wicked” that draws audience like bees to honey. Has the director cast a magic spell on the show or did the wizard of Oz come to life during the making of the show? Perhaps, it’s just the coming together of highly talented and creative artists that have made history on Broadway!

The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre

Zane Grey Theatre Complete Season One

The great thing about live theatre is that it has the power to take you to a lot of different places. Indeed, it is quite possible to forget you are even sitting in a theatre watching a play or musical at all. And when it comes to seeing some of the best performances on offer, you can’t do better than visiting London.

And of course being London, these theatres don’t just put on the best shows in existence – they also have a great history and presence about them. Take the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, for example. This has been open for nearly two hundred years, although the history of various theatres being in this area goes back a lot further than that.

It is this kind of history that adds to the excitement of taking a theatre break in London. For starters, it gives you a chance to take yourself out of your everyday life and experience something altogether different. You could be transported into fantasyland, or perhaps taken into the middle of a murder mystery.

It is also a nice way to treat someone for a special occasion. Most of the London theatres are located in the West End, which means you can arrange to stay in town somewhere nearby and then choose the type of show you want to see. In fact, whatever theatre you choose to visit it won’t be difficult to locate, and there are plenty of other things to do locally too.

That is the advantage of seeing a London show. You don’t just have to see the show itself – you can turn it into a weekend away as well. For example, you can arrive in London sometime on Saturday; enjoy the sights before going for an early dinner, and then seeing the show you have tickets for. And once you have done that you can relax in a nearby hotel room, re-charging your batteries in readiness for a nice relaxing Sunday.

Of course, such breaks can prove a good idea for a birthday or anniversary; but it is also the perfect way to spend any weekend when you have time to spare and you need a break from the norm.

Indeed, combining London breaks with a theatre trip can prove a worthwhile idea. No matter whether you prefer a taste of classic musicals or modern ones, or a choice between serious or comic plays, you will find something that tickles your fancy.

And remember that you don’t have to get the most expensive seats in the house to get a good view – you could save that money for a drink after the show instead!

Opened in 1910 after the old building was burned down, Theatre Royal Windsor is located directly across the road from Windsor Castle. History with regard to this theatre indicates that it was built in the high street in 1793. It was this theatre that was attended by George III when he was residing in the castle and he was provided with spacious armchairs and playbills printed on silk whenever he came to enjoy a play at the theatre. A fire in 1908 resulted in burning down the theatre which resulted in the destruction of main parts of the building. But the theatre lovers were lucky enough that they were able to see the same kind of setting in the new building which was an idea of the owner of the theatre to keep it similar to its old setting.

This theatre boasts of its position as the only unsubsidised producing theatre to operate all year round in Britain. It is also one of Britain’s leading theatres and is renowned for the quality of productions. Therefore theatre lovers have the luxury of witnessing the newest productions before they are shown in London’s West End and before they tour around the country. The success of this theatre lies on the fact that it launches a range of new schemes for both businesses and regular theatre lovers.

For those of theatre lovers a visit to Theatre Royal Windsor will guarantee a day of maximum entertainment. While you visit this intimate theatre make sure that you find Windsor accommodation at a comfortable Windsor hotel. One such recommended hotel with easy access to Theatre Royal Windsor is Millennium Uk.

Scenic Art for the Theatre, Second Edition: History, Tools, and Techniques

Pantages Theatre is a famous venue built in the city of Los Angeles, America. This city of America is also known as the entertainment capital of the world.

A city which is known for many activities going around, here it focuses on a lot of entertainment events. Pantages Theatre is a venue wherein one can come and watch a plethora of dramas and plays.

The Pantages Theatre was built in the 1990″s. The Pantages Theatre has to its credit of showing some very interesting plays having great storylines and performances par excellence.

The Pantages Theatre is also present in other cities of the America to keep the spirit of live entertainment alive in the eyes of the people. It is not just plays that are shown in the theatre but there is other entertainment that surrounds the Pantages Theatre.

For instance, the theatre acts as home for the melodious music played and as a concert venue for people who love listening to music. Although office meetings and work occupation makes it difficult for professionals to take time out for fun activities.

And same is the case with children who tend to enjoy their holidays by trying something different which they have never done earlier, well for them the Pantages Theatre acts as a blessing in disguise making their weekends very enjoyable.

The Pantages Theatre works as a real break through for them. In a stressful environment where there is always a hustle bustle seen just about every where and people who intend to wind up their tasks before they could even think of having some time off from their hectic routine and same goes for the youngsters studying in the educational institutes of any level.

In the fast track global changes where everything demands to be completed in a swish and where the people think of having a magic wand in their hands that could take them far away from the worries of life with just a swift move and take some time out of their monotonous and hectic routine life to entre a place where they would get a dream come true sort of environment and refresh themselves.

All the worries and problems that they come across daily refreshing themselves for some time however, eventually going back to the reality where stress awaits them rather they face the stresses with great new ways.

Where they could close their eyes and sit in a cozy serene environment with melodious music entering their ears and getting a soothing effect and relaxation which seemed to have been lost somewhere under the piles of problems of the daily lives and it is the Pantages theatre that acts as a rescuer and believes that one should adapt to the social changes.

A Hollywood landmark, Pantages Theater signifies both the glorious past and adventuresome future of the world’s entertainment capital. Situated in the heart of Hollywood, on Hollywood Boulevard, this glittering theater has served as a movie palace, music hall and all-around venue for big-budget productions since its opening in 1930. The Pantages’ history is as grand and diverse as its stage and screen fare. Founder Alexander Pantages originally stacked the bill with MGM flicks and vaudeville acts, while center stage gave a way to live theater. The Pantages has also been the site of many gala premieres and spectaculars.

The Pantages Theater was one of the first movie houses built after the advent of talking pictures in 1930. It was designed for maximum audience comfort, with over 40% of the interior space devoted to public areas, lobbies, lounges and restrooms. The opening night audience was more impressed by the interior of the theatre. The Pantages also gained attention for boasting the most elaborate sound equipment anywhere in the world. In 1959, Universal Pictures booked Spartacus into the Pantages as a long-run, sure-fire attraction. To run the event, the house had to scale own its capacity to 1,512 seats. This reduction in seating capacity forced the Oscars to relocate, but there were still star-studded evenings at the Pantages.

The Pantages Theater was a home to the glittering Academy Awards Presentations from 1949 to 1959, and in 1967 it was sold to Pacific Theatres. Pacific briefly closed the house down for refurbishing. After undergoing a major restoration, the Pantages reopened, refreshed, again taking its place as one of the finest movie houses on the west coast. It continued as such for nearly a decade till 1977, when the silver screen went dark. Once again work was begun on the Pantages’ latest and greatest incarnation in preparation for the L.A. run of ‘The Lion King’. The production brought back the magnificent art deco gleam to the facility that had been covered by years of tarnish and deterioration.

Today, the Pantages Theatre is one of Los Angeles’ leading homes of legitimate theatre and a favorite location for TV shows, movies and music videos. Restored to its original conditions, the Pantages offers a variety of performances. It has also hosted rock concerts, for bands including Dream Theater, and Foo Fighters to name a few. Shakira graced the staged in 1997, while in 2006 Mexican pop-group RBD recorded their CD/DVD ‘Live in Hollywood’ at the Pantages. The Pentages Theater is now operated by an arm of the Nederlander Organization.

The Pantages Theatre has recently presented large scale production musicals such as Disney’s The Lion King, which ran at the theatre for over two years. It is currently playing host to the Los Angeles production of the Broadway musical Wicked. So, get your tickets and see the season’s most exciting event in the intimate setting of Pantages Theater. Nearby the place, you’ll find bars, tatoo shops and t-shirt shops. There are several excellent restaurants within walking distance that you might like to try out!
For more information about Pantages Theatre tickets visit:
http://www.ticketluck.com/venues/Pantages-Theatre-ca/index.php

London today teems with so many theatres at the well-renowned West End. Many talented artists who want to get their breaks and begin their acting careers seek the spotlights of the West End theaters for the promise of brilliant and shining show business careers. The London theatre is where all things can begin for actors so every hopeful has his eyes on the high profile roles, the applause, and that chance to perform on these famous theatres.

I was in 1597 when an actor decided to put up his own theater and launch himself as a star. Richard Burbage established the Globe Theatres when he took over the lease of The Theatre, which was the first ever playhouse in Shoreditch, that was put up in 1576. The Theatre started the rich history of the London theatre and the West End. When the lease expired, Burbage took over and launched much more ambitious efforts to push the industry and the craft. Soon enough, Burbage became a big name as a great actor and he came to be known too, as the first to play Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear, as well as Othello.

In 1663, the West End legacy of artistic excellence in stage performance soared with the opening of the first London West End venue at Drury Lane. This very famous venue witnessed careers of the earliest icons – the likes of Charles Hart and Nell Gwyn. The old theatre, unfortunately, suffered during a fire in 1672.

Since London already had a taste for the theaters, it didn’t take much time before a new venue rose on the very same spot in 1674. The Theatre Royal of Drury Lane came about and picked up after where the former theatre left off. This theatre, designed by Christopher Wren managed to survive for the next 120 years. That was quite a long-standing record especially those days. Along with other theatres that sprung like the Theatre Royal Covent Garden (Royal Opera House) and the Haymarket, The Theater became a catalyst in the evolution of the West End Theatre.

In 1737, a wine seller by the name of David Garrick got magnetized to the call of London’s West End at Drury Lane. He became the legendary manager of the Theater Royal and made his mark on the theatre scene. He soon became famous for playing the roles of Richard III and became a very great influence in the London Theatre scene in the next 20 to 30 years. The Garrick Club and the Garrick Theatre are memoirs of his great contributions to theatre arts in London.

Most of the beautiful buildings that house the modern theatres were built during the 19th century. The middle and upper classmen in London have somehow made theater-going an enduring fashion trend in the city. Many of the theaters started to appear along Shatesbury Avenue too, at the end of the 19th century and soon, this area became the focal point for London Theatre. Many of the buildings are still around and well maintained these days for everyone to appreciate.

Theatre-going never ceased to be a fashion statement and more and more talented actors are being born in these theaters. The London Theatre scene continues to attract so many people from around the world.

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.