An Introduction to Technical TheatreAuthor summary: "An Introduction to Technical Theatre draws on the author’s experience in both the theatre and the classroom over the last 30 years. Intended as a resource for both secondary and post-secondary theatre courses, this text provides a comprehensive overview of technical theatre, including terminology and general practices."
Exploring Movie Construction and Productioncovers major areas of film construction and production including theme, story plot mechanics, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, directing style, cinematography, and editing; defines terminology and types of analysis. [CC BY-NC-SA]
Writing the Analysis of a Poem, Short Story, or Play: assignment page covers how to write a critical analysis, or interpretation, of a poem, short story, or play, in order to identify an author’s or text’s main idea [CC BY]
Theater Performance and Style: covers key considerations of theatrical performance, including:How to Read a Play, Performance and Audience, Meaning and Conventions, Direction, Production Concept, and Stage Design, and Acting and Characters [CC BY]
The Importance of Tragedy and Elements of Drama: covers the importance of dramatic performances of the ancient Greek theatre and some of the formal elements of drama [CC BY]
Voice Acting/Enunciation Exercises: a collection of enunciation exercises is intended to improve diction, articulation, pronunciation, and speech clarity. [CC BY-SA]
The Cultural Work of Drama Criticism in the Early 1890s: J. T. Grein’s founding of the Independent Theatre Society in 1891 marks a turning point in the cultural history of British theatre. For the first time, the London stage had a theatre that eschewed popular and profitable forms and embraced avant-gardism. While the Independent Theatre provided an alternative to the commercial theatre, drama critics began to define their work as a non-commercial assessment of theatre. Focusing on 1893, Miller demonstrates that reviewers in the early 1890s either directly used the Independent Theatre to define their own cultural roles or indirectly reflected the Independent Theatre’s concept of writing for an audience that is elevated above mass culture. [CC BY]
Improvisation in the Design Classroom: This essay is a discourse on the value and benefits of utilizing improvisation to teach and model responsiveness within a given learning moment, facilitate students’ interaction with the immediate social circumstances that contextualize a given design challenge, and prepare them to be ready for the uncertainties inherent in design processes.[CC BY-NC-ND]
Improvisation Recipe Book: games (“recipes”) intended to be used as reference and study for college level course on the topic of improvisation. [CC BY-NC-SA]
Performance – Perspectives: topics covered- identifying cultural performances within various settings; reasons why anthropologists study performance; role of performance in both reflecting and contributing to social change; define “presentation of self”; relationship between performance and cultural constructions of gender; social conflicts using a theatrical lens; differentiate between descriptive and performative utterances; evaluate the outcomes of performance, especially as they relate to hegemonic discourses; framing devices used to mark the boundaries of performance [CC BY-NC]
Theater Performance and Style: covers key considerations of theatrical performance, including: How to Read a Play, Performance and Audience, Meaning and Conventions, Direction, Production Concept, and Stage Design, and Acting and Characters [CC BY]
Shakespeare
Approaching Shakespeare: Each lecture in this series by Dr Emma Smith focuses on a single play by Shakespeare, and employs a range of different approaches to try to understand a central critical question about it.
Folger Shakespeare Library Collection: Folger Shakespeare Library is a large Shakespeare collection; a resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world. [CC BY-NC]
Theatre and Performance Studies Commons:"The Digital Commons Network brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. Curated by university librarians and their supporting institutions, the Network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work." [various open licenses]
Variety Stage: Theater Playbills and Programs: 146 theater playbills and programs that provide information about variety theater productions, including names of performers, productions, the different acts that comprised an evening's entertainment, and advertisements. Selected to represent all the variety-related materials found among the thousands of souvenir theater playbills and programs housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division; Library of Congress; public domain
Crash Course Theater and Drama: videos based on an introductory college level course in Theater and explores the history, theory, and technology that contributes to the art form most like life.
Ideas about Theater: A collection of TED Talks on the topic of Theater [CC BY–NC–ND]
HowlRound Theatre Commons: global, commons-based peer produced, open access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound
ILRS Technical Theatre: playlist covers the impact of cultural and historical trends, stage, set construction, costume, lighting, sound, and more [CC BY]