Talk:Amateur theatre

Amateur Theatre

Can you add anything here to help expand this important section of the arts?

What other groups are in Bristol and the surrounding areas?

I'd be glad to add more info about amateur theatre, but I would expand it to a more general term than simply Britain's scene.

I'm going to recommend this be merged with Community theatre. That article already mentions the English term for it, so the content here can probably be merged in. Munificent 22:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me - perhaps we could add sections on how the amateur theatre culture operates in various countries. (I've added a mergefrom tag to Community theatre.) AndrewWTaylor 08:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like someone disagrees with you Munificent, and has changed the description of the English term. (It directly contradicts the redirects from amateur dramatics now, but I don't feel qualified to make the call on that one. Mootinator 19:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have just copy-edited the article. Please don't let it degenerate with original research and casual commentary on the subject. Rintrah 16:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Major Copy-edit

Corrected minor typos, reworded some sentences to try to give a more encyclopedic tone. Added the bit in the intro about WHY there is debate about quality, and the bit about lower cost and greater accessibility. Wikified several more words. I also think there should be some examples of professional actors who began in amateur theatre, since that sentence is just kind of hanging out there, and there should maybe be some support for "millions of people." This is my very first edit on Wikipedia, and I tried to do my best. If I messed something up, please just tell me--I want to learn (and I'm pretty sure I did the edit summary wrong). Also please note that I am American, so if I didn't use British conventions, it was unintentional. IrisWings 23:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed "Criticism" section

I've removed this section, as it's uncited and seems very POV to me. (Not to mention the many spelling mistakes.) AndrewWTaylor 17:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

"Many theatrical practitioners frown upon amateur dramatical groups, do to many directors / actors bieng un-trained and having little or no experience or knowledge of theatre appart from that read in books. This also causes considerable problems when these groups come to work in professional theatres, as trained technicians / stage managers find it difficult to work with some amateur personall, as many bilieve themselves to be very important and knowledgable but have little idea about how professional theatres are run."

Merge

As there appears to be no real consensus on merging this into Community theatre, given that the two have differing meanings in different countries I'll remove this tag if theres no further discussion before the end of February. Gnangarra 03:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think they are quite different things and both this article and the Community theatre article are pretty dire so merging them is not going to help. I'll do some research and come back to this article when I have a moment (which may not be for some time!) In the meantime, I'm going to remove the merge notices in view of comments here and on the other article's talk page. GDallimore (Talk) 13:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Non-Professional Theatre

Just to confuse things even more, many "amateur" theatre groups, particularly musical theatre, use the term non-professional as they feel amateur has negative connatations, not in keeping with the standard of performance and production.Robhar174 06:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Critical Response

Amateur companies are strongly criticized in many countries. This article should include that. Amateur Theatre is in no way comparable to real theatre.

Merge and re-write/clean up but restore "criticism"

As an academic and member of the professional arts community, I want to clean-up wikipedia's articles in relation to amateur theatre. Criticism of this movement is widely expressed in reputable journals, reviews, symposiums and the mainstream media worldwide. I work in a theatrical library and hold a doctorate in contemporary theatre. Whilst the section on criticism was poorly written and contained spelling errors, the views expressed were completely accurate. Amateur performers are untrained and unqualified and almost never make the leap into the professional arena, for precisely the reasons stated in that section. They have no proven skills but often come with a lot of attitude - as evidenced by the way these articles have been biased in wikipedia towards an amateur perspective. Even those few professionals who may have participated in amateur theatre in their youth inevitbaly leave it well behind as they hone their craft, and train, and study. There's a lot of twisting the truth going on here. Labels such as "non-professional" theatre are just smoke and mirrors. The negative connotations are justified, as the standard of performance and production is inevitably inferior to trained, qualified, experienced, proven, hard-working professional artists. All of the articles on amateur theatre and community theatre and the various companies listed on wikipedia that fall under that banner should be merged together and held in the correct context. As far as the arts are concerned, amateur theatre is merely a footnote and held in low regard. As I wrote elsewhere, artists (actors, directors, writers and producers) can study for anywhere between 3 - 8 years to achieve professional skills and qualifications. They work hard to earn the right to be called professional and to be treated accordingly. Wikipedia should concentrate on expanding its professional coverage and keep its standard consistent with reputable sources, rather than be an unreliable source of information with contentious statments and dishonest articles. I mean no disrespect to any of the fine writers and editors on this site, but this debate has been totally one-sided and nobody is backing these articles up.(Moviefreak26 (talk) 01:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC))