Catalog Search Results
1) Sing
Language
English
Description
A koala impresario stages a grand singing competition for the world's animals in order to save his elegant theater and bring it back to its former glory.
Language
English
Description
The Electric Palace theater was one of the earliest cinemas in England. After the invention of the movie camera by Thomas Edison in 1889, films quickly became popular entertainment. Movies ranged from short, simple narratives to clips of entertaining scenes from everyday life. Until the introduction of "talkies" in the late 1920s, early theaters hired musicians to play along with the silent films.
Language
English
Description
Eight models of new-type (1962) theaters designed through a collaboration between distinguished stage designers and architects are shown and discussed. Architect Frederick Kiesler's "Universal Theater" is featured, having been praised by Arthur Miller. Kiesler appears on camera to sing its praises. Each represents one of the eight concepts of ideal theater. The models were subsidized by the Ford Foundation and are on display at the Museum of Contemporary...
Language
English
Description
This eight-part documentary series goes back stage to cover six months in the life of London's Theater Royal Haymarket from all angles, including the arrival of new artistic director Sean Mathias and the lead up to his production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. The fourth episode covers the story of the haunted theater, focusing on the ghost of former theater manager John Buckstone, who died in 1879....
Language
English
Description
In 1861, Charles Garnier's project was selected for its "rare and superior qualities in the beautiful distribution of the plans, the monumental and characteristic aspect of the facades and sections." The Palais Garnier is a building of exceptional opulence. The style is monumental and considered typically Beaux-Arts, with its use of axial symmetry, exterior ornamentation, polychrome columns, marble friezes, and lavish statuary. During the Second Empire...
6) Onstage
Language
English
Description
Although staging a play requires extensive preparation, its ultimate success depends upon the energy of the performers and their ability to engage a live audience. This program focuses on what makes that interaction successful, featuring segments on character interpretation, timing, underplaying, movement, positioning, dialects and accents, portraying pain and drunkenness, and other principles and elements of acting. Sections covering mime performance-one...
Language
English
Description
This program looks at educational theater through the theater program at Hamden (CT) High School, interspersing production segments in rehearsal and performance with teacher, student, and audience interviews. Recommended by the NEA, the program demonstrates the value of educational theater and how this value can be maximized.
8) Backstage
Language
English
Description
The "magic" of theater is the result of rigorous planning, hard work, and the finely honed skills of artisans and designers. This program takes viewers inside the technical process of mounting a stage play. Focusing on a theater company's major production departments-set, prop, costume, makeup, lighting, and sound-the video shows how the knowledge and labor of theater technicians comes to life. Information about model fabrication, painting techniques,...
Language
English
Description
Journeying back to the dawn of Italian theater, this program unmasks the intriguing and often underappreciated tradition known as commedia dell' arte. Viewers will discover the history of Italian masked theater, the origins of commedia dell' arte and its various iterations, and the nature of its performers' improvised style. The program explains how the tradition's inspired characters-Pantalone, Colombina, Pulchinella, and many others-evolved and...
Language
English
Description
In the Greek myth, Orpheus suffered the consequences of looking back to see if his beloved was following; Appia had no such temptation-he deliberately turned his back on the stiff, boring, dated way in which Gluck's opera was being staged. Here is Richard Beacham's imaginative re-creation of the Orpheus as staged by Appia and Jacques Dalcroze in 1912-a fusion of acting, music, and sets that ushered in a new form of theatrical art. With the University...
Language
English
Description
When La Scala underwent drastic refurbishment beginning in 2002 there were loud cries of protest from fans who feared the historic authenticity of the 200-year-old theater would be lost. But the stage area was soon demolished and the auditorium rebuilt to let La Scala, which was once lit by candles, come fully into the modern age. In the end, the process allowed restorers to discover features that had been buried for centuries and to incorporate them...
Language
English
Description
Understanding Greek tragedy, not through post-Ibsenist, post-modernist, post-Method eyes but in terms of what the ancient playwright may have intended, requires going beyond the text to the staging. For the staging defines the relationship between chorus and actors, between actors and audience, and between playwright and play. Using the theatre at Epidauros as an example-it was built a century after the heyday of Greek classical theatre but is well...
Language
English
Description
This program looks at the theatres of Herodus Atticus, Epidauros, Corinth (where Arion is said to have taught the dithyramb), and many others to explain the design of the ancient theater, the synthesis of art forms that was ancient Greek drama, the origins of tragedy, the audience in classical times, the comparative roles of writer/director and actors, and the use of the surrounding landscape in many plays.
Language
English
Description
U.K. theater company Frantic Assembly has emerged as one of the boldest and brightest stars in the international drama firmament. Building shows from the ground up-called devising, a form of improvisational, collaborative theater-is at the heart of the highly acclaimed troupe. This program provides insight into the devising process, from first thoughts to first night. Part celebration, part explanation of Frantic Assembly's approach to production,...
Language
English
Description
Gisela May, star of Bertolt Brecht's East German Berliner Ensemble theater, reminisces about the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and performs short pieces to illustrate his techniques and ideas. Performance pieces include acting exercises, comparisons of cabaret style with the styles used in political satire, and songs. The music is by several of the major composers who worked with Brecht: Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill and the songs are sung...
Language
English
Description
The National Theatre has entertained Washington since the time of Andrew Jackson, bringing the best of Broadway to Washington (and sometimes sending a play or musical to Broadway), providing a stage for theatrical legends from Edwin Booth to Helen Hayes, casting an influence on the American theater simply because it was the National Theatre and on the nation because theater - even when it appears all froth or fancy - remains a powerful medium that...
Language
English
Description
Tragedy upholds traditional values and comedy attacks them-which explain much of the change from Aristophanes to Plautus, from Old Comedy to New, reflecting as it does the change from Athenian democracy to Roman totalitarianism. Wary of creating permanent spaces that might be used for mass meetings, the Romans constructed temporary wooden structures to house their theatrical productions. Since these structures were made of wood, they did not survive....
Language
English
Description
As a founding member and the driving force behind the Group Theater, Harold Clurman helped heighten the emotional sensitivity and social awareness of American drama. This classic program, narrated by Meryl Streep, recounts Clurman's artistic journey using rarely seen archival films and conversations with the director's inner circle-luminaries of the mid-20th-century American stage including Arthur Miller, Lee Strasberg, Roy Scheider, Karl Malden,...
Language
English
Description
This program explores Appia's innovations: replacing the flat painted scenery and declamatory style of the 19th century with plastic environments for three-dimensional actors and actresses, using mobile lighting, and counterpointing visuals with music. His designs for Ibsen and Shaw productions link 20th-century theater to the freedoms of ancient Greek drama and mark Appia as the father of modern theatrical design.
Language
English
Description
When a play is performed, all eyes are on the actors-which means the costume department can make or break a production. This program introduces skills and responsibilities essential to theatrical costume design, technology, and management. After outlining the history of stage costuming, the video shows how an actor's attire reveals his or her character, how a designer researches and incorporates period dress styles, and how various fabrics, colors,...