Theater Midterm notes

1/30/25: Why Theater? 3

People go to the theater for many reasons 

• Immediacy, relevance, and engagement

• Social aspect, good place ot be a part of a great event

• Visual spectacle (Scenery, Costumes, Lighting)

• Sensation of sound (Language, Music, Special Effects)

• Offers experiences we don’t often have (exotic yet familiar, good vs evil, funny and sad)

• Appeals intellectually by engaging audiences with relevant issues

• Some consider the craft to be theatRE and the actual space to be theatER

• Theaters around the world use both versions in their names

Theater = Actor(s)+Audience+Space

• Without ACTORS, it would be a group of people in a place, wondering why they are there

• Without an AUDIENCE, you would have no one to perform for.

• Without a SPACE, you wouldn’t have a place to perform or a place for an audience to see your performance.

Theater as a Performance-

• Performance: activity where some people do something while others watch

• Not confined to just the arts

• Religious ceremonies (weddings)

  • Predetermined sequence of events

  • Costumes are worn

• Job interviews

• Sports

• Presentations

• Politics

  • All of these aren’t exactly theater but can be considered such because they follow the equation

Shared traits of performances-

• People that do something (Performers, actors)

• Something done (A speech, ritual, or play)

• Audience (Spectators, audiences)

• Performance space (Stadium, church, theater)

• Time(Beginning and ending)

Differences among performances-

• Religious services so that people can worship

• Sports so that someone can win

• Politics to inform or rally a group of people

• Theater does not usually involve winners, just there to entertain

• Relationship between audience and performers

  • Sports fans interact amongst themselves

  • They also indirectly interact with the players through shouts and chants

  • Probably won't happen at a religious event or theater

Theater as an Art-

• Music, theater, books

• Sculptures, Paintings, Architecture

Shared traits of arts

• Art is artificial – an artist makes art.

• Art stands alone – does not need a practical purpose in life

• Art is self-aware – artists know in a general way they’re trying to do something

• Art produces a kind of response – an aesthetic response, an appreciation of beauty that goes beyond merely intellectual or entertainment

Differences between arts

• Artificial Settings

• Relationship with time and space

  • Sculptures, Paintings, Architecture

    • Exists in space

    • You walk around it, look at it from different sides and angles

  • Music, Theater, Books

    • Takes time to move from start to finish

• Audience size

  • Solitary – sculpture, paintings, books

  • Groups – operas, dance, theater

• Theater has actors

  • A person who impersonates someone other than themselves

  • They also perform live in front of an audience

• Theater uses a performance space

  • Usually has artificial settings

  • Unlike film where the camera can take you around the world

  • Can’t do car chases!

Theater moves at its own pace through time

• No rewinding or fast forwarding, you cannot stop it

• Can't set it aside to pick up later

• Theater is lifelike, but it is not life

  • Artificial, created by artists

  • Can be used as metaphors (all the words a stage and all the men and women merely players)

2/3/25: How to See a Play (4 qs)

• Arrive 15-30 mins before the start of the show, don’t forget your tickets

• Theater is a social event

  • Dress accordingly

  • There really isn’t a dress code, but I urge you to consider dressing nicely for the occasion!

  • If it’s an opening night performance, you might be required to wear an evening gown or a tuxedo

• Turn off phone

• There is an unwritten agreement between actors and audience

• You can respond or react however you feel like

• Laughing at characters who are crying or a nervous laugh

• Clapping when a character you like stands up for themselves

Preliminary Work

• The play or musical itself

  • Take a little time to familiarize yourself with the play, by either reading it or reading reviews and articles about it.

  • Have a general idea of what you are about to see.

  • Don’t assume you know what the play’s about from the title.

• The program or playbill you receive when you go to your seat

  • Look for directors notes

  • Indications of time and place play will take place within

  • Get familiar w/ character names/relationships

  • Find out if theres an intermission

• The physical surroundings within the theater

  • The set, if visible, can give a sense of time, place & social class

  • Lighting may establish mood

  • Sound/Music – Bach says something different than Country music

  • Actors doing things on stage or in audience before start of show

Taking it in:

• Visual/aural spectacle (lighting/sound/costumes/acting)

• Language of the play (Ahakespeare, David Mamet)

  • Are the actors speaking in a dialect?

• Do you identify with any of the characters?

• Does the plot keep you engaged?

• Is the plot plausible or absurd?

• WHAT ARE THE REACTIONS OF THE AUDIENCE?
  

Performance Analysis

• Story/Character: how are they intertwined

• Idea: specific choices made by actors/designers

  • Actor’s appearance

  • Looming set piece or stark set design

• Given circumstances: everything that delineates or defines the special world of play

• There are 3 kinds of given circumstances

  • Previous action/exposition: Any action mentioned in the play’s dialogue that reveals any incident or action that took place BEFORE the current action of the play.

• Environmental Facts: 

1. Geographical Location

2. Time - Date, year, season, time of day

3. Economical Environment

4. Social Environment

5. Political Environment

6. Religious Environment

• Polar Attitudes: Beliefs held by a character that are in direct opposition to the world in which they live

• This opposition creates CONFLICT

• Conflict creates DRAMATIC ACTION

Conventions vs. Common Sense

• An agreement between the artist and audience to follow certain conventions for the benefit of all.

  • Time can pass between acts of a play.

  • In scenic design, a door in a room on stage should lead to another part of the house, not backstage.

  • In musicals, actors express their emotions through song.
    

Theater Spaces 5

Proscenium Stage

• Identified by having a “proscenium arch”

• The action of the play fits within a frame

• Rigging system behind arch and possibly trap flooring

• Wings

• Most have an area that extends a few feet in front of arch

• Audience areas

• Orchestra seats

• Balconies

• Sightlines can sometimes be bad

• 

Thrust Stage

• Audience on 3 sides of stage

• No arch

• Actors can enter from the aisles

• Actors can enter from the vomitories (or voms) that come  from beneath the audience

• Relies on acting, costumes, props rather than elaborate sets

• Proscenium Thrust Stage

  • Defined arch but with a larger amount of stage space extending into the audience

  

Arena Stage

• Stage is surrounded on all sides by the audience

• Also called “Theater in the Round”

• Actors bring on props and set pieces

• Entrances are through audience

• Scene changes are done either in blackout or in full view of the audience

• Can sometimes have trap flooring
  

  

Blackbox Theater

• VERSATILE: Can place any type of stage within it

• The audience can be placed anywhere

• Painted all black so that focus is on the performance

• Often used in schools for classrooms as well as

• performance spaces

• Most theater studios and college theater departments

• have one or more.

• Rutgers’ Levin Theater is a blackbox theater

  

Environmental Stage

• Theater done in or at specific (usually outdoor) spaces

• No traditional stage

• No arch

• The audience can be anywhere and can sometimes physically move with the actors from scene to scene

  • New York Classical Theater

• A production can take over an entire building

  • Sleep No More

• A play can take place in a car

  

Alley Stage:

• Audience on opposite sides of the stage

• Actors perform between them

  

  
  Booth:

• Temporary stage

• Erected curtain

• Perform in front of curtain

• Popular with educational tours

  

Theater Contracts and Venues 5

Broadway

• Highest level of American Theater

• Falls under a Production Contract negotiated by The Broadway League

• Defined by how many seats it has – 500+

• There are about 40 Broadway theaters

• Only theaters eligible for Tony Awards (except for the Regional Theater award)

• Is professional theater at its best

  • Distinguished stars

  • Elaborate sets and costumes

  • Sophisticated musicals and plays

• Expensive!

• • Cost a lot to produce – salaries and material costs

• • Ticket prices

  • Average: $189

  • MUSIC MAN tickets averaged around $283, about $700 for premium.

  • HAMILTON, at its peak, averaged $236. However, they were often selling at around $1,000

• • TKTS

  • Half-priced tickets for Broadway shows on the day of the performance

  • • Producers use this to fill seats for performances that are not sold out

• • Only found in NYC

• • Broadway Tours

  • • Seldom use original stars

  • • Helps recoup losses from Broadway flops

  • • Brings Broadway to people that might not ever see it

Off Broadway

• Originally named so because of the actual theater’s location, on a street just off of Broadway

• Now defined by number of seats – 100 to 499

  • Some shows “transfer” to Broadway

  • Rent – New York Theater Workshop 1993 & 1996

  • Avenue Q – Vineyard Theatre 2003

  • Hamilton – The Public Theater 2015

• Serves as a showcase for new talent

• Average ticket price: $80

Off-Off Broadway

• • Started in late 1950’s as a place for experimental, anti-commercial theater

• • Defined by 99 seats or less

• • Performed in various spaces

  • • Coffee houses

  • • Cellars

  • • Churches, etc.

• • Often socially, politically, or artistically alien to current American ideals

• • NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 started at the Off-Off Broadway theater Ars Nova

• • Average ticket price: around $30

Regional Theaters

• • Usually not-for-profit

• • Can be more adventurous with

  • • Play selection

  • • Production style

  • • Personnel decisions

• • 5 major benefits that regional theaters offer:

  • • Provide a place where new and classic plays can coexist

  • • Developing new audiences for live theater

  • • Training ground for theater artists

  • • Help to stretch an actor’s craft

  • • Provide more jobs

• • Can fall under different kinds of contracts:

  • • LORT – League of Resident Theatres

    • • A consortium of 70+ non-profit regional theaters

    • • 5 categories: A+, A, B, C, D based on weekly box office gross which dictate salaries and ratio of Equity and Non-Equity actors

  • • SPT – Small Professional Theatre

    • • Commercial or non-profit theaters smaller than 350 seats outside of NY or Chicago

  • • LOA – Letter of Agreement

    • • Individually negotiated

    • • \Often reference other contracts such as LORT D

Amateur Theater

• Educational Theater:

  • Rutgers Mason Gross is an example

  • • First theater degree in 1914 at Carnegie Institute of Technology

  • • After WWII, more colleges created theater undergrad and graduate degrees

    • • Undergrad programs tend to be Liberal Arts programs or conservatory programs

    • • Graduate programs tend to parallel regional theaters in function

  • • More than 2,000 programs in the U.S.

  • • Whole range of plays offered

  • • Sometimes have Guest Artist contracts

• Community theater

  • • Found throughout the country

  • • In towns where there’s no professional or educational theater, they introduce new audiences to live theater

  • • Very little pay, if at all

  • • Rely on volunteers

  • • A mix of amateur and professional actors and designers

• Children’s theater

  • • Created to produce plays geared toward young audiences to instill

  • a love of theater

  • • Can vary in content

    • • Creative retellings of fairy tales, myths, and legends

    • • Plays that discuss social issues like

    • • Drugs

    • • Divorce

    • • Sexual abuse

      • • Bubbalonian Encounter

A Play from start to finish

• Playwright - writes the play

• Producer – willing to produce the play

• Director – hired by Producer to direct the play

• Designers – chosen by Director, approved by Producer

• Actors – auditions are held and play is cast by Director

• Designers – begin building sets and costumes

• Rehearsals begin

• Tech rehearsals begin

• Preview performances begin

• Opening night

• Closing night and strike

Playwright 5

• Why not “Playwrite”?

  • “Wright” means “maker”

  • Wheelwrights make wheels

  • Cartwrights make carts

• Playwriting

  • Playwrights create copies of human life by creating a “language” for characters

    • They create dialogue for characters to say to one another that:

      • Forwards the plot

      • Reveals character

      • Express ideas

  • Unlike a novelist, playwrights must write words that are:

    • More active

    • More intense

    • More selective

      • …than a speech or a novelist’s words

• Lynn Nottage

  • 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for her play RUINED

  • Her play SWEAT won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

  • Awarded the 2017 American Academy of Arts & Letters Award of Merit Medal for her body of work.

• Where do playwrights get their ideas?

  • Ideas can come from anywhere

    • Overheard conversations

    • Current events

    • News headlines

    • Injustice

  • How long does it take to write a play?

    • 7 days to 7 years, depending on the playwright

    • There’s even 24 hour play festivals that happen around the country.

• Playwrights work in various ways

  • Some work alone and some collaborate with theatrical colleagues

    • For musicals:

      • Playwrights that write the dialogue for musicals are called Book-writers

      • Lyricists write the words for the music

      • Librettists write both the dialogue and the words for the music

• Where do playwrights come from?

  • Most work within the “theatrical world”

    • Perhaps they are actors now or were previously

    • Perhaps they write for his/her own theater troupe

      • Moliere wrote for himself and his troupe

      • Shakespeare wrote for his fellow actors based on their strengths

  • Some come from outside the theater world- “newcomers”

    • Newcomers have the gift of ignorance and might not follow the traditional:

      • Form

      • Style

      • Length

      • Subject Matter

    • The “Insider”

      • Social insiders write about specific topics

        • Ex: 

          • African American playwrights that write about social issues that pertain to the Black community

          • LGBTQ playwrights that write about issues within their community

          • Feminist playwrights that write about women’s rights

• August Wilson

  • Wrote the Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten plays, each set in a different decade, and depicts various aspects of the African-American experience in the 20th Century.

  • Recent Broadway production of Jitney won the Tony Award for Best Play Revival

Playwright 5

• Playwright Training

  • Unlike actors, directors, and designers, playwrights don’t always go through formal training.

  • There are university programs that do offer training.

  • No real rules for playwrights, but there are maxims to follow:

    • Write what you know

    • Write action, not speeches

    • Write for actors, not readers

• Playwrights as Screenwriters

  • Playwrights will often write for TV shows and films

  • Film scripts are often called “screenplays”

  • Similar style of storytelling between playwrights and screenwriters

• Other professions that playwrights can thrive in

  • Copywrighters: Create advertising copy and marketing materials for companies

  • Editors: Editing things like books, poetry, other playwrights’ scripts, or articles.

  • Content writers: A playwright could write blogs, manage social media accounts, or write articles online.

• Getting the play produced

  • Recently, the number of theaters that produce new plays has increased, mostly by not-for-profit theaters

  • NYC is the goal

    • Best reviews 

    • Most prestigious

  • Often, playwrights will have workshops of their plays or simple read-thoughts to hear their play out loud

• The play in rehearsal

  • Many changes can happen to the script from the first readthrough to first rehearsal up to opening night

  • Some changes can be painful to make because they might be great scenes, but need to be cut for time purposes for other reasons

  • Actors can get a better sense as to why the characters they're playing say the things they say when they say their lines out loud

• Paying the playwright

  • Broadway standard: A percentage of the theater’s weekly gross from the production. Usually 6%

    • A Broadway hit= $1000s per week

    • Not a hit- $1000 or less

  • Amateur or stock productions

    • 2 or more prominent organizations handle rights to plays

      • Dramatist play service

      • Concord theatricals

    • They collect royalties for the life of the plays copyright

      • Royalties: payments to playwrights for permission to produce their play

      • Copyright law of 1977: author’s life plus 50 yrs

• William Shakespeare

  • Born April 23rd, 1564 **

  • Died April 23rd, 1616

  • Born in Stratford-upon-Avon

  • Married Anne Hathaway

  • 3 Children – Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith

  • Sometime around 1585-1592, began a career as an actor, playwright and part owner of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting company

  • Wrote 38 plays, including a midsummer night’s dream, hamlet, macbeth, othello

  • Wrote 154 sonnets and 2 narrative poems

  • He invented over 1700 words including:

    • Eyeball

    • Bedroom

    • Puking

    • Elbow

  • His plays are performed more often than any other playwright

  • His plays are broken up into 4 major categories

    • Tragedies

    • Comedies

    • Histories

    • Romances

The Actor 9

• Without actor, there is no theater

• Good performers

  • But not all performers are good actors

    • Circus performers high-wire acts require good performers, but do not require good actors

  • Musicals require both

    • The ability to “sell” a song requires both high level performers and actors

The paradox: 

• The actor is and pretends to be the character, successful acting makes audience believe that the falseness on stage is true

• To be convincing, the actor must lie

2 Approaches to Acting

• Inspiration

  • Use mental and emotional techniques to reach their ‘center’

  • Often use past personal experiences to inform characters

  • Which then turns into onstage movement & vocalization

• Technique

  • Builds a character out of careful and conscious use of body and voice

  • Rehearses inflections or carefully chooses specific poses and hand gestures

  • Can sometimes be thought of as “full of tricks” with no life or imagination in their work

• Most actors are a combination of both approaches to acting

Actor Training

• Formal training at colleges or private studios have taken the place of the ‘old’ way

• Most colleges use various actor training systems

• Almost all systems involve at least the following 3 characteristics

  • Analyzing the script

    • Understanding the entire play

      • The first reading- judgements and impressions are made

        • The style of the play, the overall shape of the play

        • What demands will be put upon you as an actor

    • The Details of the character in the play

  • Training the actor’s “instrument” - Body and Voice 

  • Training the actors imagination

  • 2 main goals:

    • Understand entire play

    • Understand details and the place of the character in the whole play

• UNDERSTANDING THE ENTIRE PLAY

  • • The first reading – judgments and impressions are made

  • • The style of the play (ie. Abstraction, language, historical era)

  • The overall shape of the play

  • Actors will also find out what demands will be put upon them in the production

• THE DETAILS OF THE CHARACTER IN THE

• PLAY

  • • More character details can be found from repeated

  • readings of the play

  • • Character traits can be found in:

  • • Stage directions

  • • Character’s own speeches

  • • Speeches of other characters

The Craft of Acting

• Actor’s Body

• The goals of the actor’s body:

• • Resistance to fatigue

• • Quick responsiveness

• • Adaptive ability

• Neutral Mask Work

  • “Neutral” masks are used so that the character or image is expressed through the body

  • The actor is not able to use facial expressions to convey emotion

  • It must all be expressed through the body

• Body Language and Nonverbal Communication

  • Posture

  • Simple gestures 

    • Hand waving

  • Using your body to express ideas and emotions without words

  • Practical Application

    • Rhythmic movements-Dancing

    • Period movement and the use of props

      • Using hand fans

      • Canes

      • Swords- Stage combat

• The Actor’s Voice

  • Control muscles involved in speaking

  • Learn to project voice

  • Unlearning and relearning is often necessary for most beginning actors

  • Maximize control over every word and sound their voice makes through:

    • Breath control exercises

    • Vocal relaxation

    • Articulation exercises

    • Dialect work

• Training the Actor’s Imagination

  • They are encouraged to re-discover their imaginations

  • They are encouraged to play games, often children’s games

• Creative Exercises

  • Teachers use exercises to free actors from fear of embarrassment and 

  • Image exercises

    • Teaches actor to grasp mental pictures

    • Use a memory to create a character 

  • Creating simple characters around objects

    • Actor is verbally given an object and told to create a character

• Improvisation Exercises

  • Creating characters/theater without a playwright

• The Group Theatre (Strasberg/Chlurman/Crawford)

  • The Group Theatre was a collection of theater artists formed in 1931 to create a natural and disciplined form of theater.

  • What they began became an “American Acting Technique” based on the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski

• Konstantin Stanislavski

  • A russian actor and director known for his system of actor training, preparation and rehearsal technique

• The American Stanislavski System

  • The actor is trained to analyze character to discover:

    • Objective

      • What is the goal of the character?

      • WHat is the goal of the scene?

    • Super Objective

      • What all the objectives of the character are for the entire play

      • The through-line of the character

    • Given circumstances

    • Motivation

      • To play a character, an actor must look for motivation behind each action

      • In this system, all behavior is motivated 

• Method Acting

  • Connecting to a character by using personal experiences, emotions and memories, or “affective memory,” to portray the role

  • Actors imagine themselves with thoughts and emotions of the character

• Meisner Technique

  • Taught here at Rutgers

  • Does away with “affective memory” and puts the emphasis on the “reality of living”

  • Strives to “get the actor out of their head” and react more to their surroundings

  • The actors “Live truthfully under the given imaginary circumstances”
    

The Business of Acting 9

• Approx. 51,000 union theater actors in the country

• Approx. 30,000 of those actors are on the east coast

• Approx. 26,000 of those actors are in NYC

• Most likely coming straight from college, you’re not in a union yet

  • AEA– Actors’ Equity Association – Theater Union

  •  SAG/AFTRA – Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists – Film/TV/Radio Union

    • Used to be 2 separate unions, merged 2012

• 2 major markets: NYC and LA

• Other Markets

  • Chicago: 3rd major market, increasing film tv jobs and solid theater communit

  • Atlanta

  • Vancouver, Toronto, Canada: “Hollywood North”

• 20 years ago:

  • If you wanted to pursue a film/tv career, you went to Los Angeles

  • If you wanted to become a theater and Broadway star, you went to New York City

  • You’d go to Chicago if NYC didn’t work out, because Chicago only had theater with very little film/tv work

• Now

  • Los Angeles is still primarily film/tv, but they have a thriving theater community there as well

  • NYC is still primarily theater, but with a lot more film/tv opportunities. However, the cost of living is very expensive.

  • Chicago is thriving with both theater and film/tv. Plus, it’s not as expensive as NYC

• You picked NYC

  • Need a survival job

    • waiter/waitress, temp employee, teaching

  • Need headshots

    • Professional pictures taken, should represent you

    • Can cost anywhere from $100 to $700

  • 2 Primary headshots: dramatic and comedic

  • Resumes

    • Show the director what experience you have

    • Personal info (height, hair/eye color, contact info)

• Gaining real world experience

  • Backstage Magazine

  • Online Services

    • Playbill.com

    • Actor’s Access

    • Broadway World

    • Individual theater websites

• Non-Equity Audietions

  • Usually the director and/or casting director in

  • the audition room

    •  A reader is in the room if SIDES are used

      •  Sides - scenes or portions of scenes given to an actor ahead of time to be performed in front of the director

  •  You might find out if you got the part that day, within a week or 2, or sometimes never

• Becoming an Equity Actor

  • The goal for a non-Equity actor is to become an Equity actor. To become an Equity actor, one can either:

    • Equity Membership Candidate – work at least 25 weeks at a participating professional theater.

    • Get hired by a theater that will “turn” you Equity

    • NEW “Open Access”: If you’ve received payment for acting from a professional theater, you can join Equity

  • $1800 Initiation Fee, $176 annual dues, 2.5% of pay

• Equity Actor Auditions 

  • Without an agent

    • Equity Principal Auditions-EPA’s

      • Sign up for timeslots online

      • Usually doesn’t have director

  • The Callback 

    • Director or representative in the room might bring you back in to:

      • Audition in front of the director

      • See you do more sides of the play

  • Auditioning with an Agent

    • The Casting Director sends out a notice stating the project they’re casting and what types of people they’re looking for

      • The casting director is hired by the theater

      • Works with director and various agents to find the right actors for the roles being cast

• The agent 

  • Can get you into big auditions 

  • Agent showcases

    • College

    • Trade papers and online services, ie backstage

    • Acting classes and studios

  • Agent negotiates the contract if you get the part

• Rehearsal

  • Begins with a meet and greet

  • Director speaks

  • Design presentations

  • First read-through of the play with full cast

  • After read-through, start “table work”

  • Once table work is done, actors get on their feet and begin blocking the play

    • Blocking: stage movements created by a collaboration between actor and director

  • Once the show is blocked:

    • Will do a run through of show

    • Start from the beginning and work through the show in more detail

  • Technical Rehearsal

    • When all of the technical and artistic elements of a production come to together on stage without an audience

    • First time the actors are on stage

    • The stage manager sets…

      • Light cues

      • Sound cues

      • Set piece move cues

  • Previews

    • 1st preview - first time performing in front of an audience

    • Chance for actors to sense whether or not something in the show works

    • Useful for getting technical kinks 😛out

    • Rehearsals are still held for about 5 hours during the day

• Opening night

  • First time critics are in the audience

  • Kinks worked out, this is what audiences will see for the rest of the run

  • Opening night party

  • Director is the least important person

• Run of the Show

  • Now that the show has opened, the stage manager maintains the shape/integrity of the show

  • Actors must continue to review character work and notes

• Closing Night

  • Can be bitter sweet

    • You’ve created a bond with the cast and crew

    • If it’s been a long run, you might be ready for something new

  • The set is “struck” that night or the next day

    • STRIKE – the taking down of the set or removal of set pieces or props in rehearsal

  • Sometimes there’s a closing night party

• Process takes around 2-4 months

Bill Bowers 5

• Marcel Marceau: most famous mime, started the black and white stripes

• Commedia del arte: 

  • Period of art where you would watch certain stock characters interact with eachother, usually improv/body comedy

  • Pedro: stock character known for being dumb/clumsy

    • In one scene, one of the other characters threw flour on Pedro’s face as a joke

    • Since he got money from it he made the flour face his trademark, start of whiteface

    • Whiteface is now used by many mimes to illuminate face, exaggerate expressions, and simplify 

• Birth of pantomime:

  • Italians came to act in Paris and were so popular that they were taking French actors audiences

  • France started requiring all performers to speak French

  • As a result, italian actors stopped speaking and started pantomiming

• French version of pedro: Pierrot

  • Seen everywhere, symbol of Paris