The Northwestern University Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts exists as a for-profit operational and administrative body in association with the Northwestern University School of Communication with the specific charge of producing, managing, funding and administering the performing arts productions of the School of Communication, Department of Theatre and Department of Performance Studies, including programmatic responsibility for theatre, music theatre and dance. The Theatre and Interpretation Center was built in 1980, and renamed in 2015 to the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. [1] The building contains a 450-seat thrust stage theater (Ethel M. Barber Theater), a 350-seat proscenium theater (the Josephine Louis Theater), two smaller black box theaters, a dance performance space, full theatrical production facilities, and offices for the center. Its plain white exterior walls and boxy, utilitarian shape stand in stark contrast to the nearby University Library, and earned it the nickname "The Box The Library Came In" among Northwestern students.
Each year, as many as forty productions are mounted in the Wirtz Center. [2] Of those forty, approximately eight are main stage productions staged in the Ethel M. Barber Theater and the Josephine Louis Theater and are directed by faculty, third-year MFA directing students, and guest artists. These productions include both classic and contemporary plays, dance performances and musical productions. In addition, the Wirtz Center produces the annual Waa-Mu Show, an original student written and performed musical and also the Summerfest which includes a two to three play series that is performed during the summer. The center offers subscriptions for the entire season as well as for Summerfest. Currently there are over fifteen hundred subscribers who buy the season package. These patrons come from the University population as well as the neighboring communities.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to theatre:
A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black box is a relatively recent innovation in theatre.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was named in 1964 as a memorial to assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the center hosts many different genres of performance art, such as theater, dance, orchestras, jazz, pop, psychedelic, and folk music.
Agnes George de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer.
In theatre, a thrust stage is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the audience than a proscenium, while retaining the utility of a backstage area. This is in contrast to a theatre in the round, which is exposed on all sides to the audience, is without a backstage, and relies entirely on entrances in the auditorium or from under the stage. Entrances onto a thrust are most readily made from backstage, although some theatres provide for performers to enter through the audience using vomitory entrances. As with an arena, the audience in a thrust stage theatre may view the stage from three or more sides. Because the audience can view the performance from a variety of perspectives, it is usual for the blocking, props and scenery to receive thorough consideration to ensure that no perspective is blocked from view. A high-backed chair, for instance, when placed stage right, could create a blind spot in the stage left action.
Johannes Birringer is an independent media choreographer and artistic director of AlienNation Co., a multimedia ensemble that has collaborated on various site-specific and cross-cultural performance and installation projects since 1993. He lives and works in Houston and London.
Harand Camp of the Theatre Arts is a performing arts summer camp located at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin and based in Evanston, Illinois.
The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance is the undergraduate and graduate school for the performing arts of the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.
The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is an educational and performing arts complex located at 500 South Goodwin Avenue in Urbana, Illinois and on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Herman C. Krannert, an industrialist who founded Inland Container Corporation and an alumnus of the university, and his wife, Ellnora Krannert, made a gift of $16 million that led to the Krannert Center's construction. Max Abramovitz, the architect who designed the facility, was also an Illinois alumnus.
E. Patrick Johnson is the dean of the Northwestern University School of Communication. He is the Annenberg University Professor of Performance Studies and professor of African-American studies at Northwestern University. Johnson is the founding director of the Black Arts Consortium at Northwestern. His scholarly and artistic contributions focus on performance studies, African-American studies and women, gender and sexuality studies.
McCarter Theatre Center is a not-for-profit, professional company on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. It was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1963. A two-time Tony Award winner, the McCarter’s legacy traces back to the theatre’s first performances in 1930. Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Kaufmann and Hart’s You Can't Take It With You, and William Inge’s Bus Stop all had their premieres on the McCarter stage.
The Governor's School for the Arts is a regional secondary arts school sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education and the public school divisions of Chesapeake, Franklin, Isle of Wight County, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Southampton County, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach. It is one of 19 Virginian academic-year Governor's Schools and provides intensive educational opportunities for identified gifted students in instrumental music, vocal music, dance, musical theatre, theatre & film, and visual arts. The school is housed in the historic Monroe Building in downtown Norfolk.
Karla Burns was an American mezzo-soprano and actress who performed nationally and internationally in opera houses, theatres, and on television. Her first major success was as Queenie in the Houston Grand Opera's 1982 revival of Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern's 1927 musical Show Boat. This production premiered in Houston, and then toured nationally and on Broadway. For her portrayal of Queenie, Burns won a Drama Desk Award and received a nomination for the Tony Award. The role of Queenie became a pivotal part in Burn's career, and she portrayed the character in many productions internationally for two decades. For this part, she became the first black person, African-American or otherwise, to win the Laurence Olivier Award, Britain's most prestigious award for theatre.
Young Playwrights' Theater (YPT) is a not-for-profit theater arts-based education organization in Northwest Washington, D.C. It provides interactive in-school and after-school programs presenting and discussing student-written work to promote community dialogue and respect for young artists.
The Marblehead Little Theatre is a community theatre in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Founded in 1956, it is one of the oldest continually operating community theatres in New England.
The University of Texas Performing Arts Center (PAC) is a collective of five theaters operated by The University of Texas at Austin, College of Fine Arts. The theaters are the Bass Concert Hall, McCullough Theater, Bates Recital Hall, B. Iden Payne Theater and Oscar Brockett Theater. Theaters range in size from the Oscar G. Brockett Theater, which has 244 seats, to the Bass Concert Hall, which seats 2,900. In addition to the theaters, the PAC also has offices and meeting rooms, rehearsal spaces and shops which are located in the PAC building and across the campus. PAC provides students an opportunity to interact with professionals in staging events and performing arts and extends an opportunity to the surrounding community to participate in all-age programs.
Rick Shiomi is an internationally recognized, award-winning Japanese Canadian playwright, stage director, artistic director and taiko artist, and a major player in the Asian American/Canadian theatre movement. He is best known for his groundbreaking play Yellow Fever, which earned him the Bay Area Theater Circle Critics Award and “Bernie” Award. Over the last couple decades, Shiomi has also become a notable artistic and stage director. He directed the world premiere of the play Caught by Christopher Chen for which he received the Philadelphia Barrymore Award Nomination for Outstanding Direction. He is currently the Co-Artistic Director of Full Circle Theater Company.
The Voodoo Macbeth is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Orson Welles adapted and directed the production, moved the play's setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean island, recruited an entirely Black cast, and earned the nickname for his production from the Haitian vodou that fulfilled the role of Scottish witchcraft. A box office sensation, the production is regarded as a landmark theatrical event for several reasons: its innovative interpretation of the play, its success in promoting African-American theatre, and its role in securing the reputation of its 20-year-old director.
The AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas, Texas, preliminarily referred to as the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, is a $354-million multi-venue center in the Dallas Arts District for performances of opera, musical theater, classic and experimental theater, ballet and other forms of dance. It opened with a dedication by city leaders on October 12, 2009.
Warren Caro was an American theatre executive and lawyer. He was the executive director of the Theatre Guild from 1946 through 1967, and director of theater operations and projects development director for The Shubert Organization from 1967 through 1980. He was at one time the chairman of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and served on the advisory committee for the establishment of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.