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The Drama League is an American theatrical association based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1910, in Chicago, as the Drama League of America, and chapters were established throughout the United States. In 1911, the organization began to publish a monthly magazine called The Drama . In 1922, the Drama League established the Drama League Award, and formalized its annual presentation in 1935.
The Drama League was founded in Chicago in 1910 as the Drama League of America. [1] The national organization was created with two primary objectives: to influence the professional production of the best plays by alerting members to performances that warranted their support; and to ensure the continuity of professional theatre by educating the audiences of the future. In 1911 the organization being publishing a monthly magazine, The Drama .
By 1926, there were 37 local chapters, or centres, of the Drama League of America. [1] After 17 years of existence, the New York Centre of the organization briefly disbanded, but reorganized in 1928. [2] [3]
In 1934, the League decided to recognize theatrical achievement in a different way. A committee consisting of Broadway producers and other theatre professionals created the first—and still the only—audience-selected award for distinguished performance in a theatrical production.
In the 1980s, The Drama League experienced major transformation. It now also focused its efforts on providing a training program for directors, and a developmental and support program for playwrights. In 1984 the League initiated a program for young directors that combined training with intensive professional experience for entry-level or early career directors.
The program has three phases: [4]
In 1988, the Directors' Project was expanded to include a summer directing program to run in conjunction with the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York. Participants in this program travel to the Hangar, where they each direct a children's show and at least two short plays, and serve as assistant director on a main stage production. [5]
The Directors' Project also includes two other programs, the New Directors/New Works program, and the Assistant Directors program.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to theatre:
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director thereby collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff to coordinate research and work on all the aspects of the production which includes the Technical and the Performance aspects. The technical aspects include: stagecraft, costume design, theatrical properties (props), lighting design, set design, and sound design for the production. The performance aspects include: acting, dance, orchestra, chants, and stage combat.
A regional theater or resident theater in the United States is a professional or semi-professional theater company that produces its own seasons. The term regional theater most often refers to a professional theater outside New York City. A regional theater may or may not be for profit or unionized.
Ben Iden Payne, also known as B. Iden Payne, was an English actor, director and teacher. Active in professional theatre for seventy years, he helped the first modern repertory theatre in the United Kingdom, was an early and effective advocate for Elizabethan staging of Shakespeare plays, and served as an inspiration for Shakespeare Companies and University theatre programmes throughout North America and the British Isles. His name lives on as the name of a theatre at the University of Texas as well as annual theatre awards presented in Austin, Texas.
James Forbes was a Canadian playwright who worked as a Hollywood film screenwriter. The Chorus Lady and The Famous Mrs. Fair were his best known plays.
Harold Edgar Clurman was an American theatre director and drama critic. In 2003, he was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. theater by PBS. He was one of the three founders of New York City's Group Theatre (1931–1941). He directed more than 40 plays in his career and, during the 1950s, was nominated for a Tony Award as director for several productions. In addition to his directing career, he was drama critic for The New Republic (1948–1952) and The Nation (1953–1980), helping shape American theater by writing about it. Clurman wrote seven books about the theatre, including his memoir The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre and the Thirties (1961).
Amateur theatre, also known as amateur dramatics, is theatre performed by amateur actors and singers. Amateur theatre groups may stage plays, revues, musicals, light opera, pantomime or variety shows, and do so for the social activity as well as for aesthetic values. Productions may take place in venues ranging from the open air, community centres, or schools to independent or major professional theatres.
The Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) is the largest and oldest independent theatrical arts school in Russia. Located in Moscow, the school was founded on 22 September 1878 as the Shostakovsky Music School. It became the School of Music and Drama of the Moscow Philharmonic Society in 1883, was elevated to the status of a conservatory in 1886 during which time the institution was colloquially referred to as the Philharmonic Conservatory. It was renamed the Institute of Music and Drama in 1918, and was known as the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts (GITIS) from 1934 to 1991.
Dr. Teya Edvinova Sugareva is a Bulgarian theatre director, drama teacher, and poet.
Twentieth-century theatre describes a period of great change within the theatrical culture of the 20th century, mainly in Europe and North America. There was a widespread challenge to long-established rules surrounding theatrical representation; resulting in the development of many new forms of theatre, including modernism, expressionism, impressionism, political theatre and other forms of Experimental theatre, as well as the continuing development of already established theatrical forms like naturalism and realism.
As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theater as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. The Little Theatre Movement served to provide experimental centers for the dramatic arts, free from the standard production mechanisms used in prominent commercial theaters. In several large cities, beginning with Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and Detroit, companies formed to produce more intimate, non-commercial, non-profit-centered, and reform-minded entertainments.
The Theatre Development Fund (TDF) is a not-for-profit performing arts service organization in New York City. Created in 1968 to help an ailing New York theatre industry, TDF has grown into the nation's largest performing arts nonprofit, providing support to more than 900 plays and musicals and returning upwards of $1.5 billion in revenue to thousands of Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway music and dance productions.
The John Gore Organization (JGO), formerly known as Key Brand Entertainment (KBE), is a producer and distributor of live theater in North America, as well as an e-commerce company, focused on theater. KBE was founded in the UK in 2004 by 14-time Tony Award-winning Producer John Gore who is the company's Chairman, CEO and Owner.
The Ethiopian Art Theatre — originally called the Chicago Folk Theatre, later the Colored Folk Theatre, also referred to as The Ethiopian Art Players — was an African American theatre company based out of Chicago, Illinois. The company was an influential albeit short-lived (1922/1923–1925) group founded during the Harlem Renaissance. There are differing views over the precise year that the company was founded, 1922 or 1923. The founder was Raymond O'Neil, a white theatre director, and its principal sponsor was Mrs. Sherwood Anderson, also white; though all its performers were African American. The organization was unique and controversial during its era, primarily for being one of the few African American Theatre Companies to perform European theatrical works, but also, among other things, for producing theatrical works of African American playwrights for both African American and Non-African American audiences.
Daniel Fish is an American theater director based in New York City.
Keith Franklin Fowler was an American actor, director, producer, and educator. He was a professor of drama and former head of directing in the Drama Department of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts of the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and the artistic director of two LORT/Equity theaters.
The American Laboratory Theatre was an American drama school and theatrical company located in New York City that existed during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a publicly subsidized, student-subscription organization that held fund-raising campaigns to support itself.
The Hangar Theatre is a non-profit, regional theatre located at 801 Taughannock Boulevard in Ithaca, NY. Its mainstage season and children's shows occur during the summer, but the Hangar, and other organizations, utilize the space year-round for special events. The tenets of the Hangar's mission statement are to enrich, enlighten, educate and entertain.
Marion Gering was a Russian-born American stage producer and director. He moved to the United States in 1923 as an artist. He became involved in the theatrical community in Chicago, founding the Chicago Play Producing Company.
Mary Porter Beegle, also known as Mary Urban, was an American dancer, theatre professional, and college administrator.
