Theater is a branch of the performing arts. It focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance creates a representational illusion. By this broad

Theater.

Theater is a branch of the performing arts. It focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance creates a representational illusion. By this broad definition, theater had existed since the dawn of man, as a result of the human tendency for storytelling. Since its inception, theater has come to take on many forms, utilizing speech, gesture, music, dance, and spectacle, combining the other performing arts, often as well as the visual arts, into a single artistic form. The two most common types of theater plays are comedy and tragedy, symbolized by the theater masks.

The first recorded theatrical event was a performance of the sacred plays of the myth of Osiris and Isis in 2500 BC in Egypt. This story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the beginning of a long relationship between theater and religion.

The ancient Greeks began formalizing theater as an art, developing strict definitions of tragedy and comedy as well as other forms, including satyr plays. Like the religious plays of ancient Egypt, Greek plays made use of mythological characters. The Greeks also developed the concepts of dramatic criticism, acting as a career, and theater architecture.

Western theater continued to develop under the Roman Empire, in medieval England, and continued to prosper, taking on many alternate forms in Spain, Italy, France, and Russia. The general trend over the centuries was away from the poetic drama of the Greeks and the Renaissance and toward a more realistic style, especially following the Industrial Revolution. A uniquely North American theater developed with the colonization of the new world.

The history of Eastern theater is traced back to 1000 BC with the Sanskrit drama of ancient Indian theater. Chinese theater also dates back to around the same time. Japanese forms of Kabuki, Noh, and Kyogen date back to the 17th c. Other Eastern forms were developed throughout China, Korea, and Southeast Asia.

The most popular forms of theater in the medieval Islamic world were puppet theater (which included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta'ziya, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. Live secular (светский) plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theater.

Drama is the branch of theater in which speech, either from written text or improvised is paramount. Classical forms of drama, including Greek and Roman drama, classic English drama, notably works of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and French drama, for instance works of Molière, are still performed today.

Musical theater. Music and theater have always had a close relationship. Musical theater is a form of theater combining music, songs, dance routines, and spoken dialogue. Modern musical theater emerged from the variety, vaudeville, and music hall genres of the late 19th and early 20th century. Musical theater includes spectacle as well. For instance, contemporary Broadway musicals often include lavish (обильный) costumes and sets supported by million dollar budgets.

Comedy. Theater productions that use humor as a vehicle to tell a story qualify as comedies. This may include a modern farce such as Boeing Boeing or a classical play such as As You Like It. Theater expressing controversial or taboo subject matter in a deliberately humorous way is referred to as black comedy.

Opera. Is a genre of theater where a story is told through singing. Singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theater, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.

Pantomime. A musical drama that includes dance, mime, puppetry and melodrama for a comic experience designed for children.

Tragicomedy. Is a genre of theater that literally has a tragic tale to tell with a humorous ending.

Physical theater. Is a genre of theater uses expression movement, dance, mime, puppetry, and gesture as its primary means of communication during the play.

Ballet is a formalized kind of performance dance, which incepted during the Italian Renaissance. It has since become a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It is primarily performed with the accompaniment of classical music. Ballet dance works are choreographed and performed by trained artists, include mime and acting, and are set to music (usually orchestral but occasionally vocal).

The centre of theatrical activity in Britain is London. West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's Theatreland. There are some 48 principal theaters in or near the West End and some 8 in the suburbs. Most of the theaters are run on a commercial basis but some are occupied by important state companies, including the National Theater and Royal Shakespeare Companies. Regular seasons of opera and ballet are given at the Royal Opera House and Covent Garden. Seasons of opera and operetta in English are given by the English National Opera.

Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition, mostly borrowed from the performance styles prevalent in Europe. Regional or resident theaters in the United States are professional theater companies outside of New York City that produce their own seasons.

Earlier styles of theater such as minstrel shows and vaudeville acts have disappeared from the landscape, but theater remains a popular American art form. Broadway productions still entertain millions of theatergoers as productions have become more elaborate and expensive. Smaller urban theaters have stayed a source of innovation, and regional theaters remain an important part of theater life. Drama is also taught in high schools and colleges, which was not done in previous eras, and many become interested in theater through this.

Talking about Russian theatrical tradition, people usually mention the Russian ballet. Ballet came to Russia relatively late. It brought traditions from many other countries, mainly from France and Italy. The Russian ballet became extremely popular in the world. In the Russian ballet of the 19th century everything was in harmony: the music, which was written mainly by Ludwig Minkus, the staging, the scenery, the costumes and choreography.

At the beginning of the twentieth century ballet was still important in the cultural life of Russia, but gradually the romantic haze was cleared away. The world changed and it was taken a different view. The problems of love, hate, good, evil, were expressed in more complex ways.

The theater today seems to focus on the financial side of performance. Far fewer shows open now. They cost a lot more to stage. Too many are revivals or old hits as producers seek to reduce the risk of backers suffering crippling losses. As a result, interest centers on the finances of the theater rather than the stars and the writer-composer teams. Show-business weekly tabloids are used as the source of financial information on the incoming, on-going and out-going musicals, and readers of a gossipy weekly column in news papers can learn, how much money was spent and received.

Such situation strike fear into the hearts of producers and investors alike. Courageous impresarios still exist, even on a Broadway strewn with lavish theater marquees announcing that shows have closed (or which never arrived) and shuttered glass doors that display ticket refund information.

Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (1913–1967) was an English actress. She won two Best Actress Academy Awards for playing "southern belles": Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, a role she had also played on stage in London's West End.

She was a prolific (плодородный) stage performer, frequently in collaboration with her then-husband, Laurence Olivier, who directed her in several of her roles. During her 30-year stage career, she played roles ranging from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth.

Cats, the phenomenal musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, is a musical in two acts about a tribe of Cats who gather once a year to choose a member of the tribe to be reincarnated. The musical characters are metaphors of characters from different parts of society. Their stories are told through the poetry of T.S. Eliot and relationships are presented through choreography.

The costumes were made up to look like different cats, but the art and style was phenomenal. The style of each cat fit each actor's personality perfectly.

The stage was designed to look like an old junk yard with boulders for the cats to climb into different areas. With the lighting and work on the special effects you couldn't tell that the yard wasn't real.

But it was the music that put the play over the top. Anyone who has seen the play can tell you that it is the music of this play that makes it the star it is. From Memory to The Naming of Cats, they are songs that will touch your heart and live in your minds forever.

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