This is the story of how a young Englishman named William Shakespeare stormed London's theater scene in the late 16th century, and wrote a bunch of plays and poems that have had pretty good staying power. We'll learn about Shakespeare's beginnings, his family, and how he broke into theater
It's a Scandinavian grudge match on Crash Course Theater. We're looking at a couple of the key movements in European theater that deeply influenced the modern theater of today. We'll take a close look at two of the most radical and influential European playwrights of the 19th century, who just happened to be mortal enemies. Henrik Ibsen of Norway, and Swede August Strindberg reshaped theater, between bouts of hating each other.
The Irish Renaissance in the early 20th century included a wealth of new plays written both in Ireland, and by Irish ex-patriots elsewhere. W.B. Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, and J.M. Synge were creating a new national theater of Ireland at the Abbey Theatre. They often drew their stories from the fabric of Irish life. Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw were meanwhile writing important (and often hilarious) works on the world stage.
This week on Crash Course Theater, Mike is acting like theater started in Greece. Well, for the western theater, this is true. The earliest recorded drama in the west arose in Athen, and these early plays grew out or religious ritual. Namely, they evolved from the worship of Dionysus, god of wine, fertility, and RITUAL MADNESS. That's right. I said RITUAL MADNESS
Aristotle. He knows a lot, right? And if you choose to believe Aristotle, then you must believe all the mechanics of tragedy that Mike is about to lay on you. This week, we're looking at Aristotle's rules for the basic elements of theater, and how those can be used to bring about catharsis, the emotional release triggered by onstage trauma. You know you love the catharsis.
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Welcome to Crash Course Theater with Mike Rugnetta! In this, our inaugural week, we're going to ask the two classic questions about theater. 1.What is theater? And 2. Is it spelled -re or -er? Well, there's a clue to question two in the title of the video. The first question is a little trickier. We'll look at some of the historical definitions of theater, and investigate some of the ways people have thought about theater in different times and places in the world.
The English Theater survived a lot of pushback from various powers that be, but in the 17th century, it had to go into hiding, from PURITANS. Let's take a look at how the English Civil War, Charles I's beheading, and the Restoration of the monarchy all had effects on the English Theater. Also, not to bury the lede, but WOMEN finally make it to the English stage in this episode. Plus, Restoration comedies are pretty smutty, so you should hang on 'til the end of this one.
Drama improv Game
Theater had a slow start in Germany, mainly because Germany wasn't really a thing until *relatively* recent times. After Germany finally became a unified state, it had a couple of really important theatrical movements. Today we'll talk about Sturm and Drang, as well as Weimar Classicism. We'll also get into the work of the greatest German playwright, Goethe, and look at his play Faust in the Thought Bubble.
This week, we're back in Europe to learn about Realism and Naturalism. In the 19th Century, playwrights like Eugene Scribe, Alexandre de Dumas Fils, and Emile Zola remade the French theater, first with Realism, and later with Naturalism. What are those things? Watch and learn.
Un quartier populaire de Montréal, durant les années cinquante, une bande d'adolescents. Limités et étouffés par leurs origines très modestes, Tarzan, Moineau, Tit-Noir, Passe-Partout et Ciboulette cherchent à conjurer leur sort en faisant de la contrebande de cigarettes américaines. Mais voilà qu'un jour, Tarzan, le chef de la bande, est surpris par un douanier. Pris par la peur et la panique, Tarzan perd ses moyens et tue le douanier… Pièce de théâtre de Marcel Dubé. Coproduction du Théâtre la Catapulte et du Théâtre français de Toronto (2012)