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35-466: Podbrey retired from the company in 1997, and was succeeded by Gordon McCall. From 2007 to 2017 Roy Surette was the company's third artistic and executive director. In 2017 Michael Baratta was named chairman of the board as well as Eda Holmes being appointed the fourth and current artistic and executive director. The Centaur is the city's main English-language only theatre company. From 1969 to 1973

70-424: A "black box" with the aid of paint or curtains, making black box theaters an easily accessible option for theater artists. Storefronts, church basements, and old trolley barns were some examples of the earliest versions of spaces transformed into black box theaters. Sets are simple and small and costs are lower, appealing to nonprofit and low-income artists or companies. The black box is also considered by many to be

105-618: A black box theater can be adapted from other spaces, such as hotel conference rooms. This is common at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where the larger venues will hire entire buildings and divide each room to be rented out to several theater companies . "The Black Box Theatre" in Oslo, Norway , and the Alvina Krause Studio at Northwestern University are theaters of this type. Black box theaters have also been known to come with

140-412: A good view because the performers need only focus on one direction rather than continually moving around the stage to give a good view from all sides. A proscenium theatre layout also simplifies the hiding and obscuring of objects from the audience's view (sets, performers not currently performing, and theatre technology). Anything that is not meant to be seen is simply placed outside the "window" created by

175-588: A handful of disadvantages. The open space may leave "too many" options that can leave many at a loss for direction or inspiration. Lighting issues arise as the primary lighting is typically above the performance area. During blackout scenes, the close proximity of the audience allows them to still see the transitions happening on stage. Black box spaces also see success within the music industry. These spaces are known to be used to host vocal and instrumental performances, rehearsals, shows, and competitions. Most older black boxes were built like television studios , with

210-480: A low pipe grid overhead. Newer black boxes typically feature catwalks or tension grids , the latter combining the flexibility of the pipe grid with the accessibility of a catwalk. They were designed to be able to be spaces that can be molded into different settings easily for multiple performances. Black box theaters accommodate smaller audiences with the goal of having more intimate experiences. The interiors of most black box theatres are painted black, although that

245-408: A more or less unified angle the events taking place upon the stage during a theatrical performance. The concept of the fourth wall of the theatre stage space that faces the audience is essentially the same. It can be considered as a social construct which divides the actors and their stage-world from the audience which has come to witness it. But since the curtain usually comes down just behind

280-646: A place where more "pure" theatre can be explored, with the most human and least technical elements in focus. The concept of a building designed for flexible staging techniques can be attributed to Swiss designer Adolphe Appia , circa 1921. The invention of such a stage instigated a half-century of innovations in the relationship between audience and performers. This idea would again be re-visited by Harley Granville Barker , using Appia's design as his basis. Barker would have ideas of directing productions in “a great white box,” which would see success in 1970. As time went on, black boxes were decided on instead as black provided

315-520: A proscenium arch, but the term thrust stage is more specific and more widely used). In dance history , the use of the proscenium arch has affected dance in different ways. Prior to the use of proscenium stages, early court ballets took place in large chambers where the audience members sat around and above the dance space. The performers, often led by the queen or king, focused in symmetrical figures and patterns of symbolic meaning. Ballet's choreographic patterns were being born. In addition, since dancing

350-496: A proscenium theatre. The Teatro Olimpico was an academic reconstruction of a Roman theatre. It has a plain proscaenium at the front of the stage, dropping to the orchestra level, now usually containing "stalls" seating, but no proscenium arch. However, the Teatro Olimpico's exact replication of the open and accessible Roman stage was the exception rather than the rule in sixteenth-century theatre design. Engravings suggest that

385-526: A square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black box is a relatively recent innovation in theatre. Black box theaters have their roots in the American avant-garde of the early 20th century. The black box theaters became popular and increasingly widespread in the 1960s as rehearsal spaces. Almost any large room can be transformed into

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420-614: Is located in the Old Stock Exchange Building , formerly home to the Montreal Stock Exchange (MSE). It was built in 1903 by American architect George B. Post . The building served as the home of the MSE until 1965. 45°30′12″N 73°33′23″W  /  45.503415°N 73.556471°W  / 45.503415; -73.556471 Black box theatre A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically

455-401: Is no English equivalent ... It would also be possible to retain the classical frons scaenae . The Italian "arco scenico" has been translated as "proscenium arch." In practice, however, the stage in the Teatro Olimpico runs from one edge of the seating area to the other, and only a very limited framing effect is created by the coffered ceiling over the stage and by the partition walls at

490-429: Is not exclusive (a black box doesn't have to be black to be considered a black box, though black is most common). The absence of colour not only gives the audience a sense of "anyplace" (and thus allows flexibility from play to play or from scene to scene), it also allows for an innovative lighting design to shine through. The architecture of black box theaters typically allow for easy modifications and decorations, but at

525-461: Is structurally different from a thrust stage or an arena stage , as explained below. In later Hellenistic Greek theatres the proskenion (προσκήνιον) was a rather narrow raised stage where solo actors performed, while the Greek chorus and musicians remained in the "orchestra" in front and below it, and there were often further areas for performing from above and behind the proskenion, on and behind

560-526: The skene . Skene is the Greek word (meaning "tent") for the tent, and later building, at the back of the stage from which actors entered, and which often supported painted scenery. In the Hellenistic period it became an increasingly large and elaborate stone structure, often with three storeys. In Greek theatre, which unlike Roman included painted scenery, the proskenion might also carry scenery. In ancient Rome,

595-584: The Playbox Theatre, and functioned as an experimental space for Brown's larger venue, the Pasadena Playhouse . Such spaces are easily built and maintained. Black box theaters are usually home to plays or other performances requiring very basic technical arrangements, such as limited set construction . Common floor plans include thrust stage , modified thrust stage, and theater in the round . Universities and other theater training programs employ

630-470: The action took place in front of the scaenae frons and that the actors were rarely framed by the central archway). The Italian word for a scaenae frons is " proscenio ," a major change from Latin. One modern translator explains the wording problem that arises here: "[In this translation from Italian,] we retain the Italian proscenio in the text; it cannot be rendered proscenium for obvious reasons; and there

665-560: The audience and actors, while it still physically remains. Many theater training programs will have both a large proscenium theater, as well as a black box theater. Not only does this allow two productions to be mounted simultaneously, but they can also have a large extravagant production in the main stage while having a small experimental show in the black box. Black box spaces are also popular at fringe theater festivals; due to their simple design and equipment they can be used for many performances each day. This simplicity also means that

700-435: The beginning of dance-performance as a form of entertainment like we know it today. Since the use of the proscenium stages, dances have developed and evolved into more complex figures, patterns, and movements. At this point, it was not only significantly important how the performers arrived to a certain shape on the stage during a performance, but also how graciously they executed their task. Additionally, these stages allowed for

735-404: The black box theater because the space is versatile and easy to change. The black backdrop can encourage the audience to focus on the actors, furthering the benefits. Additionally, as the audience is now closer to the stage due to the lack of a proscenium , a more intimate atmosphere is able to be created. This intimate space may also serve to try and eliminate the implied mental distance between

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770-416: The characters performing on stage are doing so in a four-walled environment, with the "wall" facing the audience being invisible. Many modern theatres attempt to do away with the fourth wall concept and so are instead designed with a thrust stage that projects out of the proscenium arch and "reaches" into the audience (technically, this can still be referred to as a proscenium theatre because it still contains

805-532: The company leased the partially renovated auditorium in the historic building. In 1974 the Centaur purchased the building and spent $ 1.3 million in renovations under the design of architect Victor Prus. The building reopened in 1975 with an additional auditorium. The original black box theatre was renamed "C1", and seats approximately 245 people. The newer venue was named "C2" and is a more traditional proscenium stage , seating approximately 425. The Centaur Theatre

840-402: The corners of the stage where the seating area abuts the floorboards. The result is that in this theatre "the architectural spaces for the audience and the action ... are distinct in treatment yet united by their juxtaposition; no proscenium arch separates them." A proscenium arch creates a "window" around the scenery and performers. The advantages are that it gives everyone in the audience

875-399: The expense of time and monetary cost. Proscenium A proscenium ( Ancient Greek : προσκήνιον , proskḗnion ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre , usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor itself, which serves as the frame into which the audience observes from

910-526: The front of the pit, where a barrier, typically in wood, screened the pit. What the Romans would have called the proscaenium is, in modern theatres with orchestra pits, normally painted black in order that it does not draw attention. In this early modern recreation of a Roman theatre, confusion seems to have been introduced to the use of the revived term in Italian. This emulation of the Roman model extended to refer to

945-556: The most neutral setting for productions. Antonin Artaud also had ideas of a stage of this kind. The first flexible stage in America was located in the home living room of actor and manager Gilmor Brown in Pasadena, California. While the domestic decor meant that Brown's stage was not a proper black box, the idea was still a revolutionary one. This venue, and two subsequent permutations, are known as

980-554: The proscenium arch was already in use as early as 1560 at a production in Siena . The earliest true proscenium arch to survive in a permanent theatre is the Teatro Farnese in Parma (1618), many earlier such theatres having been lost. Parma has a clearly defined " boccascena ", or scene mouth, as Italians call it, more like a picture frame than an arch but serving the same purpose: to deineate

1015-414: The proscenium arch, either in the wings or in the flyspace above the stage. The phrase "breaking the proscenium" or "breaking the fourth wall" refers to when a performer addresses the audience directly as part of the dramatic production. Proscenium theatres have fallen out of favor in some theatre circles because they perpetuate the fourth wall concept. The staging in proscenium theatres often implies that

1050-478: The proscenium arch, it has a physical reality when the curtain is down, hiding the stage from view. The same plane also includes the drop, in traditional theatres of modern times, from the stage level to the "stalls" level of the audience, which was the original meaning of the proscaenium in Roman theatres , where this mini-facade was given more architectural emphasis than is the case in modern theatres. A proscenium stage

1085-477: The stage and separate the audience from its action. While the proscenium arch became an important feature of the traditional European theatre, often becoming very large and elaborate, the original proscaenium front below the stage became plainer. The introduction of an orchestra pit for musicians during the Baroque era further devalued the proscaenium , bringing the lowest level of the audience's view forward to

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1120-434: The stage area as the "proscenium", and some writers have incorrectly referred to the theatre's scaenae frons as a proscenium, and have even suggested that the central archway in the middle of the scaenae frons was the inspiration for the later development of the full-size proscenium arch. There is no evidence at all for this assumption (indeed, contemporary illustrations of performances at the Teatro Olimpico clearly show that

1155-399: The stage area in front of the scaenae frons (equivalent to the Greek skene) was known as the pulpitum , and the vertical front dropping from the stage to the orchestra floor, often in stone and decorated, as the proscaenium , again meaning "in front of the skene ". In the Greek and Roman theatre, no proscenium arch existed, in the modern sense, and the acting space was always fully in

1190-508: The view of the audience. However, Roman theatres were similar to modern proscenium theatres in the sense that the entire audience had a restricted range of views on the stage—all of which were from the front, rather than the sides or back. The oldest surviving indoor theatre of the modern era, the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza (1585), is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the first example of

1225-399: Was considered a way of socializing, most of the court ballets finished with a ‘grand ballet’ followed by a ball in which the members of the audience joined the performance. Later on, the use of the proscenium stage for performances established a separation of the audience from the performers. Therefore, more devotion was placed on the performers, and in what was occurring in the ‘show.’ It was

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