Talk:Theatre

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Resources

• The theatre: its development in France and England
• The making of theatre history
• Theory/theatre: an introduction
• Theatre histories: an introduction

As of right now there are 9350 charters (1460 words) of plain text.

--Guerillero | My Talk 03:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Re-drafting drive

This article was nominated for the Theatre Project's Collaboration of the Month. I've begun a re-draft. It's far from complete. I am trying to improve the sources and citations throughout, so for the time being I have temporarily deleted some material. I'm not trying to introduce any bias or to exclude anyone or anything. For the moment, I've introduced a decent list of sources, formatted according to the MLA author-date system (for a good example, see the Hamlet FA-class article). I've also removed all pictures of theatre buildings in a bid to focus the images more on the act/event of theatre, rather than the buildings in which it takes place. The article needs contributions from ALL areas of theatre, at as broad a level as we can muster. Please be sure to provide reliable, third-party sources for any material that's added, or help to provide citations for that which is already there. This article got 52,500 hits in the last thirty days, which means that about 2,000 people are looking at it every day! So far, I've imported material from my own draft of a new article on Athenian tragedy, from the ancient Greek comedy article, West End theatre, and various stagecraft articles.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 15:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Great idea. I'll have a look as time permits. --Thomprod (talk) 17:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been working on cleaning-up History of theatre, which has had some good material added to it since I last looked. Once that's finished, I'll try to summarise for this one.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 21:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Invention of theatre

I've restored the sentence that says that theatre was invented in classical Greece. It is fully supported by its citations and the footnote explains in greater detail what the sources actually say for anyone who's in any doubt. That it may (or may not) have developed out of myth and ritual (oral storytelling is also a candidate) doesn't contradict the fact that it was invented in a specific time and place (even if we don't have the evidence for exactly when or how). I retained Goldhill's use of the word "invention" in preference for "origin" - a good case can be made for the latter, I would argue, but it gets complicated.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 10:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

There's a discussion on the talk page of history of theatre about this, which is probably the more appropriate forum.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 12:53, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Improvisational Theatre

Given that every major North American city now has one or more professional improvisational theaters (where the performance is improvised), does improvisational theatre deserve to be listed here as a type of theatre? Any thoughts? Jwyllie (talk) 02:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of alternate spelling

Please note: There is a great deal of discussion on spelling differences in the archives: Talk:Theatre/Archive_1#Theatre_or_Theater - danyoung - 21:31, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Feel it's Is it necessary and pertinent to include a legitimate alternate spelling: "theater"? 75.45.240.199 (talk) 14:38, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

IP: I change the wording from "Feel its .." to "Is it ..." so that the RfC is posed as a question. That should avoid confusion. If you disagree with my change, feel free to undo it. --Noleander (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Disagree, "theatre" is the common word used throughout the English speaking world to describe dramatic arts; "theater" is used in some places to describe some buildings dedicated to dramatic performance. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:55, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

• Question to RfC filer: When you say "include a legitimate alternate spelling", are you talking about the very first mention of the word in the article, as in this edit? I think we need some clarification so that all the editors commenting here can be sure of what's being proposed. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 15:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The RFC filer is quite clearly proposing the addition/continuance of the mention that "theater" is an alternative spelling in the context of the first sentence. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]}
• Question to RfC filer: Why is inclusion "necessary" and/or "pertinent"? - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 16:22, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Generally, if the title of the article has an alternative English spelling, we include it in the lead. I think that's the point. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
• Yes. It is standard Wikipedia practice to include widely-recognised alternative spellings in the first sentence. (See Wikipedia:Lead section#Abbreviations and synonyms for details.) The Mirriam-Webster definition proves that theater is widely-used, and I don't think we could claim that this article was comprehensive if we omitted it. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 18:23, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

• Question Would...

  Theatre or theater (see spelling differences) is a collaborative form of ...

...be acceptable? - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 19:59, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

• Ps. I am opposed to idea on face, but if we must I like to keep it as clean as possible. - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm an American. At the Musical Theatre project, we decided to use the spelling "theatre", because this spelling is acceptable everywhere. Indeed in the US, theatre people spell it "theatre". So, there is no reason to use the spelling "theater", which is NOT acceptable in most places outside the US. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone's saying that -er should be the primary spelling, only included as an alternative in the first sentence to accomodate US readers. Would you oppose that? - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 08:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Let's be very clear about the question. Right now, the article says: "(or theater[1] in American English)". This is misleading. It is only *sometimes* spelled "theater" in American English, usually when referring to the building in which the art form takes place. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

• Yes - It is helpful to readers to give alternate spellings. There is no harm in including the other spelling, once, to educate the readers. Omitting theater from the lead may confuse readers, particularly US readers: they may feel that they are in the wrong article. We need to help readers as much as we can: including alternate spellings is helpful. The "theatre" spelling can be used throughout the body of the article. --Noleander (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Would "(or sometimes in American English theater[1])" Be a better way. I think this implements the concern of User:Ssilvers while still mentioning the alternate spelling Eomund (talk) 02:23, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

• Both should be mentioned --Guerillero | My Talk 03:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
• Yes, why would you not? As suggested by Eomund seems good to me. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I have updated it as noone has made a comment in a couple weeks. Eomund (talk) 00:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support: growing up I lived all throughout the US and was confused as a child as to which spelling is "correct". At one point I remember thinking that "theatre"(which spell check marks as an incorrect word), was Old English and not in current use. A note like this will help clarify for readers, particularly American kids taking an English class.AerobicFox (talk) 03:15, 19 October 2011 (UTC
• Support "(or sometimes in American English theater[1])" per Eomund, for the reasons of AerobicFox, and per common sense. Rich Farmbrough, 22:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC).
  
• Support "(or sometimes in American English theater[1])", although an unregistered editor appears to disagree[1]. I'd be interested to hear if any more of our friends from the US agree with User:Ssilvers, as to me it's a convincing enough argument. - danyoung - 21:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Music theatre

Someone has just created an article called "Music theatre". It seems like a confused variation of Musical theatre, which is a B-class article, and also contains elements of the Performing arts article, such as dance. The new article cites only one source, but it is not clear if the source supports creating a third article to define this field apart from "musical theatre". What do you all think? Should it be AfD'd? -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I get the impression the term was coined by the source author as a tool for topic definition rather than being something that is widely used or even recognised outside the scope of the source. Lambtron (talk) 18:18, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I have redirected to Musical Theatre. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:07, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

That seems sensible. -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)