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"Romeo and Juliet." Many of the concepts and characters in West Side Story parallel the concepts and characters in Romeo and Juliet. Due to the times with a lot of immigration, that was social motivation for such a musical like West Side Story.

The setting would be 1950s New York City. During the time, there has been an influx of immigrants from Puerto Rico. There were tensions between Puerto Ricans and the European-Americans. In that respect, that theatre is pretty much socially motivated.

It also focuses on the romance between Maria (a Puerto Rican) and Tony (a Polish-American). This is another example on how theatre is socially motivated.

EXAMPLE THREE: "Miss Saigon"

The theme for Miss Saigon was inspired by the events of the Vietnam War. However, this is also a romance story between an American GI and a Vietnamese woman. But, this has been inspired by the American presence in Saigon, Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In the form of a romance story, Miss Saigon does point out the social situation in Vietnam during the war.

EXAMPLE FOUR: "Rent"

Rent is a rock-opera.
While Rent is quite the appealing musical, it is socially motivated. It touches base upon homosexuality, romance, AIDS, Bohemians, struggling/starving artists, and live in Alphabet City.
There was a lot of social motivation with Rent. The characters of Rent were also inspired by social motivation. Just watching Rent (either the stage musical or movie), one can see that there is a lot of social motivation. Rent is definitely a prime example of how theatre has been socially motivated.

EXAMPLE FIVE: Zarganar

There is a comedian in Burma/Myanmar known as Zarganar. He is a known political activist critical of the Burmese military junta. So far, there has been much political and economic strife in Myanmar. All of it has been caused by the Burmese junta. However, the junta has brushed off and dismissed all criticism of handling of such matters such as the detainment of Aung San Suu Kyi and the response to Cyclone Nargis (which has killed over 100,000 people and displaced over one-million more).

In a sense, the social issue was enough to motivate theatre. Zarganar uses comedy as a means to criticize the junta. However, the junta arrested Zarganar and put him behind bars. His sentence is between thirty-five to forty-five years behind bars. Technically this is not theatre; but, the same concept applies.

When you factor all of these examples together, theatre has been socially motivated. Overall, theatrical productions do tell a story.
Stories are the product of social motivation for the most part. There have been a bunch of theatrical productions that have been socially motivated by a many different issues. Black theatre is motivated by black issues. Latino theatre is motivated by Latino issues. LGBT theatre is motivated by LGBT issues. Religious theatre is motivated by religious issues. Should theatre be socially motivated? It does not necessarily have to be. However, social issues do provide a lot of useful material.

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