Theatre & Modern Drama

Theatre
from French "thtre", from Greek "theatron", , meaning "place of seeing the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, mime, puppets, music, dance, sound and spectacle indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts.

 Theatre has been defined as what "occurs when one or more human beings, isolated in time and/or space, present themselves to another or others.

 In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes the form of Dance Theatre. such as opera, operettas, ballet, mime, kabuki, puppetry, kathak, kathakali, manipuri bharatanatyam, odissi, kuchipudi, chinese opera, mummers' plays (folk), improvisational theatre and pantomime.

Drama
a literary form involving parts written for actors to perform. a Greek word meaning "action", drawn from the (Classical Greek ), "to do". can be performed in various media: improvisation, live performance, radio, film and-or television - and nowadays web chat.

Closet dramas
works written in the same form as plays (with dialogue, scenes, and "stage directions"), but meant to be read rather than staged; examples include the plays of Seneca, Manfred by Byron, and Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

 Drama is also often combined with music and dance, such as in opera which is sung throughout, musicals which include spoken dialogue and songs, or plays that have musical accompaniment, such as the Japanese Noh drama.

Improvisational drama
a drama that has no set script the performers take their cues from one another and the situations (sometimes established in advance) in which their characters find themselves to create their own dialogue as they perform. Improvisational drama is made up on the spot using whatever space, costumes or props are available.

 An opera performance incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes incorporates dance. The performance is usually given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble

Japanese Noh Drama

a major form of classic Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Together with the closely-related kyogen (mad / wild words) farce a form of traditional, it evolved from various popular, folk and aristocratic art forms.

OPERA
a form of musical and dramatic work in which singers convey the drama. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition.

 By tradition, Noh actors and musicians never rehearse for performances together. Instead, each actor, musician, and choral chanter practices his or her fundamental movements, songs, and dances independently or under the tutelage of a senior member of the school.

 Thus, the tempo of a given performance is not set by any single performer but established by the interactions of all the performers together. In this way, Noh exemplifies the traditional Japanese aesthetic of transience.