by James Olny

Created on: February 17, 2007   Last Updated: April 09, 2007

This is a quite frequent question asked of me by my friends who don't ever frequent the theatrical scene. "What makes it so special dude? Why not just see a movie, it's so much cooler anyway."

It is a simple answer when you get down to it. What you see on stage is an act performed night after night with the same grace, eloquence and precision time and time again. In a movie, you run into the sound stage and do takes over and over and over until you get it right, and then, you go back to the studio and go through it all and edit what you dislike. Well no wonder movies have the edge on theatre! Our range of special effects goes as far as computer playback sound effects, intelligent lighting and projectors. We don't have any of this computer aided nonsense. Everything seen on stage in anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours of perfection. Once a show opens, there are no do overs or editing, the actors and technicians alike need to get it right, on the mark, every time or the illusion is ruined. The level of skill, dexterity and effort that goes into pulling that off is hardly fathomable, and much more than that required of most movie actors or actresses.

Also, theatre, unlike movies, are performed live between actor and audience. An actor in a movie doesn't have to worry about anyone but the director and camera crew watching him. After all, the audience doesn't see him or her on stage until he is at home post filming and the cameras are rolling in various movie theatres. On stage however, in addition to working in front of directors and the like, an actor has to perform a full show every single night in front of a new audience every showing. That is another point as well, that once an actor has gone through and made one filming of the movie, they are done. An actor has to go through the same play night after night, flawlessly each time.

So you want to know what is "special" about theatre? What's special about theatre is that we are using comparatively primitive technical effects (compared to movies) to bring you night after night of compelling and thoughtful story right on stage. We are using less than perfect equipment to bring a live full length "movie" to an audience every night with zero cuts and zero do overs in front of potentially thousands of people sitting there watching your every move. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the majesty and splendor of theatre.

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