Why do we love theatre so much?- Page 2

[qmechanic]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 7:48am

Unlike film or television, theatre is a living, breathing thing. Actors have good days and bad days. The audience is part of the show. Every performance is different. Just like life.

[ChildrenwillListen]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 12:00pm

Perfect essay topic. I love theatre so much because
I was never into sports or anything else like that. Theatre was the one thing I never gave up on.
I can find myself in the characters I see.
It's my safe place. My outlet. I can let out all the emotions I hold inside me. I can go and forget about the world for a while and just be happy. It gives me an indescribable feeling that nothing else has ever given me before. It's just a therapy for me.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 12:10pm

Because, regardless of the script or the score or the performers or the design, the performance you have just seen will never happen the exact same way ever again.

When the curtain comes down, that performance is gone forever. What happened is just a memory, shared between all involved.

Because life is somehow more alive on the stage. It's transformed into something more.

If you need proof, just look at a costume when it's on a rack. You'll see the imperfection. The places it's been altered. The cheap rhinestones and beads. The tears, the loose threads, and the wear and tear.

Onstage, it's all gone and it's something transcendent.

[Idiot]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 12:16pm

Dramamama: "Because waiting for a show to start, in the moments in the dark, I feel closest to god. (no kidding.)"

I want to scream, ME TOO! Anytime I'm in a theatre waiting for the show to start, I am reminded that 'This is as happy as I know how to get.'

[kadu335]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 12:45pm

I never liked theater before going to a theater camp when I was 15, I was a very shy and reserved person (for a bunch of reasons) and my parents thought that attending this camp would be a good idea. At the time, it didn't solve my problem of being shy, but it introduced me to this art I love so much now.

There is a feeling, different from any other feeling, that I get when I'm sitting inside a Theatre, in the dark and the orchestra starts playing. It's like going somewhere else. Even as an audience member, I feel like I'm a part of what I'm seeing and that is a very magic thing for me... as if I belonged to that special moment. I don't know if that makes any sense (english is my first language, so It's hard giving a deeper explanation haha)

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 12:50pm

I love it because it's an escape from life for a few hours. I get caught up in the show and everyday distractions disappear for that time.

[showchoirguy]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 1:22pm

I can't really explain it, I haven't got the words, it's a feeling that you can't control. Look into the "Electricty" lyrics.

[wexy]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 1:25pm

Because no one says "Cut,shoot it again."

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 1:47pm

I love that this thread no longer has anything to do with a T-shirt...

It's a great collection of thoughts!

[showchoirguy]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 1:48pm

^Just noticed that

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 1:51pm

Not that there's anything wrong with a T-shirt!

(I especially love theatre T-shirts!)

Updated On: 5/22/12 at 01:51 PM

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 2:15pm

Theatre was always an escape for me from an unkind world. I love the comradery of the actors and the audience. It taught me how to live, love and laugh. Plus who does't love the sound of applause?

Updated On: 5/22/12 at 02:15 PM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 2:46pm

"When the curtain comes down, that performance is gone forever. What happened is just a memory, shared between all involved."

Yes except for bootlegs, phone pics, endless rehashing on message boards, vivisections of first out of town previews, and the audience members who won't let a performer have a moment's peace for one bad or missed show.

[buddy5]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 3:01pm

Posted: 5/22/12 at 4:09pm

Because it allows us to intimately experience the emotional lives of others.

[ksbergslien]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 4:50pm

Ellen Burstyn was at my school this semester doing a master class and she said
"Theatre is an oil painting. Film is water color. And TV is what happens between advertisements."
I'm not sure if she came up with that herself or not, but I thought it was great.

Theatre touches people on such a deep level. I have been completely changed by seeing a single performance and that doesn't happen anywhere else for me.
It reminds you what it means to be alive I think. It feeds your soul.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 5/22/12 at 10:31pm

"Ellen Burstyn was at my school this semester doing a master class and she said
"Theatre is an oil painting. Film is water color. And TV is what happens between advertisements."

Can someone explain this to me. It makes no sense. Is she knocking TV, of which she has done A LOT?

[tazber]

Posted: 5/23/12 at 9:40am

I love theater because:

Because I was just as good as Donna when I danced in front of my mirror

Because of the sorrow in my heart when I heard that Laurie Beechman had left us.....

....and the joy that all she left behind still brings me

Because I can say the same thing about Nancy LaMott

Because one never knows, do one?

Because "In memory everything seems to happen to music"

Because the battered collection of vinyl cast recordings passed down from my grandpa is still one of my most cherished possessions

Because anything you can do Ethel can do better.

Because the actor I saw in Barnum fell off the tightrope...and it didn't make a difference

Because I f***ing love American Buffalo, goddammit!

Because Ionesco taught me how great truths can be learned from great absurdity

Because Ludlam showed the world what was ridiculous

Because they named a street after him for it

Because I still sob every time I hear Jason's Bar Mitzvah

Because I felt like I couldn't breathe when Cabaret at 54 was over

Because Stephen Sondheim helped me find the words to make sense of tragedy.....

....not a day goes by that my brother isn't somewhere a part of my life

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/23/12 at 9:52am

*hug*

Beautiful, Taz.

Thank you.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/23/12 at 10:09am

Don't stop, Tazber. Don't stop.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 5/23/12 at 1:53pm

What Ellen Burstyn is saying, in my interpretation, is that theatre is one medium, film is another and TV is yet another. She is not knocking or promoting or praising one or the other. It was a comparison.

BUT...

Oil paintings are mostly more true to life and real and vivid. They portray real things or things or people.

Water color is light, see-through and airy... What you want it to be.

... and TV is what happenes in between the ads.

[AngelorPhantom1359]

Posted: 5/25/12 at 1:02am

When I was very very young, I would go to my Granny's house, whom I adored, and we would listen to: South Pacific, the King and I, Gypsy etc. on her phonograph. While they would play, I would stage an act out songs like "Twin Soliloquies." Ever since then, I always loved theatre and couldn't imagine living without it, and whenever I miss her terribly nothing can bring a smile to my face and make me feel like she's there quite like the Overture of South Pacific.