Google the words’ history of theater,’ and you’ll get a timeline that begins in ancient Greece, circa the 6th century BCE, and high-kicks forward through time to Broadway and London’s West End.
And that’s accurate. But it’s also missing the dramatic developments in storytelling techniques happening in other parts of the world — Japan, China, Indonesia, India — at the same time. While European peasants learned to walk the straight and narrow via morality plays, Asian theater-goers explored mythology via shadow puppets, dance, and dramatic masks.
In this episode, we travel the world (and through time) for a make-believe theater festival that takes us from Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London to the lights of Broadway, then to South America and Indonesia. We drop in on the premier of Fiddler on the Roof, learn about an avant-garde approach to theater meant to build empathy, and are dazzled by puppets that bring kings and demons to life.
Then we recommend five great books that took us straight to our seats in the theater, including a novel about a very bad actor making his Broadway debut, a lively retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a peek inside the creative minds behind beloved musicals, historical fiction about Bram Stoker’s time at London’s legendary Lyceum Theatre, and an unputdownable slice of dark academia with tender theater kids at its heart.
Read the full transcript of Theater: Theater: Act One, Scene I, Lights Up.
Here’s a rousing musical number to get you in the mood: ‘It’s Hard to be the Bard’ from Something Rotten.
And some lovely theater photos to set the scene…
Here’s an entertaining video: A Brief History of Theater and Performing Arts Education.
And PBS’ History of Theater.
The Victoria & Albert Museum has a fun writeup of British theater history with excellent vintage photos.
Surely you’d like to eyeball the most stunning theaters around the world. Or this list of 7 types of theater from around the world.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. See a show! Take the tour. Here are 7 reasons to visit.
Take a look at the Playbill cover and inside pages for the 1864 premiere production of Fiddler on the Roof.
And here’s the Imperial:
Shadowplay is a historical novel by Joseph O’Connor that tells the story of Bram Stoker’s time at London’s Lyceum Theater. The book started as a radio play called Vampyre Man; you can listen on the BBC website.
Lose some time on the Bram Stoker Estate website.
There are lots of stories about Stoker’s relationship (frenemies?!) with Oscar Wilde: Inside their complicated relationship — and the woman between them and this excerpt from the biography Something in the Blood.
Here’s Henry Irving’s biography and another take.
Here’s Ellen Terry’s biography.
Hag-Seed is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest by Margaret Atwood. The theater festival in the story is a thinly veiled version of the Stratford Festival in Otario, Canada.
Here’s The Tempest in 6 minutes:
The Secret Life of the American Musical by Jack Viertel explains how musicals tell stories so effectively. The author is also involved with the Encores! Series, a Tony-honored concert series dedicated to performing rarely heard American musicals, usually with their original orchestrations.
Dave also told us all about Marie’s Crisis Cafe, America’s only acoustic sing-a-long show tunes piano bar. As you might expect, there are lots of videos on their website and appropriately adorable staff.
If We Were Villains by ML Rio is a dark academia take on the final school year for a group of theater kids. Here’s the author talking about her work:
Congratulations! You made it to the end. Here are your rewards:
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