Thrust stage

A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the audience than a proscenium, while retaining the utility of a backstage area.

This is in contrast to a theatre in the round, which is exposed on all sides to the audience, is without a backstage, and relies entirely on entrances in the auditorium or from under the stage.

"It was constructed especially for the production and was probably one of the first to break out of the procenium arch in a Broadway playhouse", wrote critic Richard France.

[2] Later resurrected by director Tyrone Guthrie and designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch,[3] a thrust stage was used in 1953 by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada.

Since that time dozens of other thrust stage venues have been built using the concept.

A thrust stage at the Pasant Theatre at Wharton Center for Performing Arts
Photograph of the thrust stage used for the Federal Theatre Project production of Doctor Faustus (1937) at Maxine Elliott's Theatre , airbrushed in white to emphasize its contours
Waldbühne Berlin