Open Stage

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre | 1996 | 700+ words | Copyright

Open Stage, raised platform built against one wall of the auditorium, with the audience on three sides. This was sometimes known in England as an ‘arena stage’, a term reserved in the United States for theatre-in-the-round. The open (or thrust) stage derives basically from the Elizabethan platform stage, and is in use today in a number of theatres, including the Chichester Festival Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, the Olivier Theatre, the Stratford (Ontario) Festival theatre, and the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Most of the new all-purpose theatres make provision for open-stage productions, which call for different techniques in acting, staging, setting, and lighting from those used on proscenium-arch stages.

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Open Stage." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Open Stage." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-OpenStage.html

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Open Stage." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-OpenStage.html

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