What Do You Love Most About Theater?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 5:00pm

I love the fact that the barrier between performer and audience is completely shattered, making it feel very old-fashioned as if you're sitting around a campfire telling stories and singing to others. The sense of community in a theater is one of the strongest feelings one could have. Everyone, even the performers, experiencing the same emotions and feelings at the same time.

[leap_of_moo]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 5:30pm

I love the energy and the emotions. It's contagious. I love that at some points things can go wrong and actors need to improvise. Each show is slightly different and there's nothing like a live audience, who could see the show on two separate occasions (or with different casts) and have a slightly different take on some characters.
I like how the forth wall can be broken much easier and the audience is included much more frequently. The audience is one of the most important parts of a show so why not include them?

I could list so much more that I love about it from the points of both the audience and the performer. Updated On: 11/10/05 at 05:30 PM

[stephygirl51]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 5:45pm

The rawness of it. There is nothing that can be hidden from a live audience. Every time I sit down to watch a show, I can always feel the electricity crackling in the air. It's amazing.

[hannahshule]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 5:50pm

There's no way I can answer this. Theatre is life, I am theatre, there is no aspect that I don't love about it.

[AspectsofLoveLover]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 5:51pm

So many many things! I love the rush, I love the risk of just putting myself out there. I love it all...its hard to pin point exactly how I feel out there. I think its different for all people, and its hard to explain to people who haven't experienced being on stage.

[greenegirl87]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 5:55pm

I agree with everything before, but I have to add the spontaneity. No show is EVER the same.

[mint0621]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 6:07pm

I love the hot men on stage!

[popular_elphie]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 6:14pm

There's many things, but I love how it's live, and anything can happen. With a show you feel much more connected to the characters and actors than with a movie. I think that's why it always irks me when Broadway actors want to transfer to the screen, because you lose that feeling of being closer to them.

[zippyjen]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 6:20pm

i love how theater is unprdictible. You never know what an actor is going to do, if a set won't work etc. The time i went to see chitty and the car broke down comes to mind.

[rose&lark]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 7:17pm

I agree with ZippyJen in that I like when I can take away stories from seeing a show because there were things that happened that were memorable (case in point, I saw the Les Mis tour a while back, and one of the times I saw it, the gun that kills Gavroche in Act II didn't go off at first...you could cut the tension in the room like a knife, because the boy seemed startled by it. He ended up finishing the song and THEN the gun went off...not a good thing by all means, but I can say I was there to see it)

I love the kinship you can have with a show and its players as well. You do feel a personal connection to these characters, and because their performance varies ever so slightly from night to night, unless two people have seen the same performance, they will have different impressions to share with each other.

[iheartcheyenne123]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 8:56pm

i love how a show is always a different memorable experience..no matter how many time you've seen it! i LOVE it all!!

[safety_in_falsehood]

Posted: 11/10/05 at 9:03pm

I love that it is an interactive experience. The actor gives all he can give, the audience recievs, and gives back on that energy. The more receptive and on the ball the audience is, the better the show will be.

I also love the unpredictability of theatre, there is no second take, you nail it, or you bust it. It is pure emotion and I love being in a room and feeling that radiate around me.

[Fizz]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 11:26am

The incredible feeling you get, whether onstage or in the audience. As said before, there is electricity in the air. You just can't get that watching a movie.

[ihearttheatre]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 3:51pm

I love how you can feel the emotions radiating from the actors. The connection between the audiance and the characters is just so much more intimate than in movies. I hardly ever cry when watching a film, but I've been caught sobbing during live shows.

Also, I love the accessibility of the performers. I like being able to meet and talk to them after the show.

Lastly, there is no feeling like that of being on stage. The rush cannot be duplicated anywhere else, and it's just the greatest feeling in the world. (IMO)

[NYC_or_Bust]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 3:52pm

Things moving up and down out of the flies....seriously, it's my favorite thing

[GYPSY1527]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 4:20pm

"I love how you can feel the emotions radiating from the actors. The connection between the audiance and the characters is just so much more intimate than in movies. I hardly ever cry when watching a film, but I've been caught sobbing during live shows.

Also, I love the accessibility of the performers. I like being able to meet and talk to them after the show. "

PERFECTLY PUT! I could not agree more.

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 4:30pm

The romance of it.

That someone can randomly break into song and it is completely acceptable.

And, for me personally, I get much more emotionally involved with a story I see unfolding live on stage than in a movie theater, for example. I become more invested in the work and the characters.

As an actor, I love having the opportunity to live in someone else's shoes if even for a few hours.

[wickedfreak]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 7:39pm

I love that it is real and the actors are all real. No fakeness with computers or anything.

I also love the feel of just being in the theater.

I love theater seats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wexy]

Posted: 11/12/05 at 8:09pm

One Christmas Eve, I got a ticket at the last minute to see Patrick Stewart in his one man "A Christmas Carol" where I became a child mesmerized by his story telling.

I've seen musicals that were so alive and full of fun and emotion and I've seen magical things like "Metamorphosis" and RSCs "A Midsummernights Dream."

Then again I've seen things like "WTF was that"
Just live breathing theatre.

[FeelingElectric]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 10:21am

What I love about theater is it's ability to transport you to another place and time.People think films can do that too, but not in the way seeing a great play or musical live can.Each experience is unique.This year alone the theater has taken me to 1930's Chicago, 1960's Baltimore,The French Riviera,Medeival Japan,1940's Manhattan and late 40's Argentina.I have loved every minute of it.I have met con artists,murderesses,teenyboppers,theives,liars, a dictator and his ambitiuous wife and am constantly suprised and excited by every new character I see.I get all this for the price of a ticket.It is the greatest escape I could hope for.I look forward to all the places I will go next, and the people I will meet in those shows.

[jasonf]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 10:35am

I wouldn't say the seats -- they are WAY too uncomfortable, BUT, there is a SMELL in theaters that I love. I don't know how to describe it, but theaters, especially Broadway theaters, have a SMELL to them that's intoxicating.

If you mean more about performances - I love whenever a show can send chills up and down my spine. It could be from being moved, it could be from a particularly funny moment (I got them yesterday during the beef jerkey scene/Ruprecht scene in DRS), or from a well-sung song. You don't get those chills in movies or on TV nearly as often, but most shows have "chill-worthy" moments.

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 10:41am

Well, first off I like that its live.

I love the feeling I get when I walk into a theatre and see the curtain and think about what is going to happen on that stage and what has happened.

[mikewood]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 10:51am

Being in the moment.... on stage and in the audience.

[w_tanoto]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 5:50pm

unexpected jokes, musics

[kas]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 5:59pm

that these people can tell entire stories and flesh out whole characters on one tiny stage in a couple of hours.

that silence in a moment/scene can be so moving and beautiful that you cry just thinking about it.

that these people are right in front of you, but they are in another world.

that hundreds of tech people, actors, producers, etc put their hearts and souls into one production

that mistakes can happen at any moment - or that you can witness a unique chemistry that can never be recreated on film.

that someone can dance full out for 5 whole minutes and then hold a note perfectly for 16 beats

that it can take hours of makeup to do only a few scenes

that when the lights go down you suspend your disbelief so fast that we never even think about it!