Cinema And Theatre: The Evolution Of The Theatre Industry

Theatre is constantly evolving in order to stay interesting for audiences. As mentioned in chapter 1, Technology is a huge part of our culture today and has found its way within the world of theatre, This can been seen within many performances by different theatre companies around the world such as, The Wooster group and Kneehigh theatre Company. One of the more recent uses to incorporate technology into theatre is by broadcasting live performances to cinemas, one of the benefits for this collaboration is making theatre more accessible to a wider audience. This chapter will be focused around broadcasted theatre.

There has been a constant battle between cinema and theatre, this rivalry has grown just as technology has grown, but, unfortunately it seems many are heading to their local cinema rather than the theatre. The united kingdoms cinema admission figures for 2013 was a total of 165,539,976 according to film distributors association (Skywire Ltd, 2014). Although theatre isn’t doing badly, 600,000 more people attending the theatre last year (BBC News, 2014) than in 2012 due to new shows on the west end such as ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’ and ‘The Book of Mormon’. What is it about cinema that draws audiences in, the price, the more comfortable seats, it is in fact numerous things that make many enjoy the cinema, so it seems only right to grab the audiences attentions where they seem to feel most comfortable.

Cinema is a huge industry, but, the united kingdom does love the theatre, hailing some of the greatest playwrights in history from William Shakespeare to Samuel Beckett, so why would we not be mad for theatre, its in our roots. Most of the country’s theatre is drawn to London, the capital city. It is the most expensi...

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... chapter one as well, is that although liveness is desirable to those who are already avid theatre goers there are still many people who do not enjoy or that feel intimidated by the theatre. Broadcasting is a way of reaching out to those who wouldn’t normally go to the theatre, but that could be down to the fact it feels as though they are going to see a film rather than actually thinking about it as a performance. The price does reflect this, when at the west end you are paying to physically watch an actor on stage, you are evidently paying for the experience. The tickets in the cinema are lower, which is a selling point to many, but you are in fact paying to go to the cinema. Only time will tell whether or not ‘NTL’ will continue to strive, based on reviews alone it is more than likely that it will progress, change and grow along with technology and theatre alike.