Recently my witty box office manager said, you should tell people that “Live theatre is still 100% made by humans! Theater — ain’t no AI or bots here.”
I laughed but that got me thinking.
An aspect that makes live theatre so incredible is that it can be unique with every performance. Each actor brings their own personality to the part they play. The actors may react to each other slightly differently, depending on the delivery of the line. Even the audience plays a part as the actors play off the energy of the audience. In a world of computer-generated content, live theater is still a human gem.
Theater’s history
Live theater is ancient — older than writing in some places. It likely grew out of rituals, storytelling and religious ceremonies. In ancient Egypt, ritual dramas reenacted myths. These were not plays in the modern sense, but they had characters, costumes and audiences. In ancient Greece, theater crystallized. Tragedy and comedy emerged as formal genres and performances were part of religious festivals.
The Romans borrowed heavily from the Greeks but made theater bigger and louder and it became more spectacle-focused. But as Rome declined, so did formal theater. After the fall of Rome, theater migrated. The church reintroduced performance through liturgical dramas which evolved into mystery plays, miracle plays and morality plays, often performed in town squares. Theater became communal and mobile with wagons, outdoor stages and whole towns getting involved.
The Renaissance brought theater roaring back as an art form. Italy is credited with the birth of improvised comedy with stock characters. In England, the Elizabethan era gave us William Shakespeare and others. Public theaters emerged and theater blended poetry, politics, comedy and tragedy.
Theaters became more professionalized and tied to rising middle-class audiences in the 18th and 19th centuries. Melodrama dominated with big emotions, clear heroes and villains. The late 19th century introduced realism and naturalism. Gas and electric lighting transformed staging and design. NYC’s Broadway came to life.
The 20th century is noted for breaking the rules. Modernism experimented with form and language. Absurdism explored meaninglessness and existential dread. Epic theatre was aimed at making audiences think, not just feel. Musical theater evolved from vaudeville into a major art form. Contemporary theater is wildly diverse today and is immersive with greater representation of marginalized voices.
The constant, across thousands of years, is that the magic has not changed. A story. A performer. An audience. All breathing together at the same moment.
At Old Town Playhouse
The second half of our record-breaking anniversary season has wonderful variety on deck, from thought-provoking Studio Theatre shows, to intense mystery, to comedy, to high energy singing and dancing. Every facet is sparkling with something for everyone.
And we also take a nod at history — although not as far back as the Greeks and Romans. Our next Studio Theatre show, “Whose Life is it Anyway?” was last performed in our 1996-1997 season. In the current version, we have an actor playing the part that her mother played over 25 years ago!
We have another actor that was in the first show and is now in the second as well — and as a bonus, her husband joins the cast this time. And we have our recently retired Production Manager, Gary Bolton, taking the stage for this first time in a very long time. We love seeing so many of our volunteers back year after year, decade after decade! And, it’s worth noting, that while this is a show about a serious subject, it is presented in a funny and heartfelt way. We promise more smiles than tears!
Come experience all the stories behind the stories here with us at Old Town Playhouse.