Stage (theatre)

The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point (the screen in cinema theaters) for the audience.

In some cases, these may be temporary or adjustable but in theaters and other buildings devoted to such productions, the stage is often a permanent feature.

The primary feature is a large opening known as the proscenium arch through which the audience views the performance.

The first indoor theatres were created in French tennis courts and Italian Renaissance palaces where the newly embraced principles of perspective allowed designers to create stunning vistas with buildings and trees decreasing in size toward a "vanishing point" on the horizon.

The competition among royals to produce elegant and elaborate entertainments fueled and financed the expansion of European court theatres.

This system required the creation of a storage stage house or loft that was usually as high or higher than the proscenium itself.

Often, a stage may extend in front of the proscenium arch which offers additional playing area to the actors.

The orchestra pit may sometimes be covered and used as an additional playing space in order to bring the actors closer to the audience.

Space above some proscenium stages may include a flyloft where curtains, scenery, and battens supporting a variety of lighting instruments may hang.

Backdrops, curtains and lighting can be used to greater effect without risk of rigging being visible to the audience.

[citation needed] They enable "rat runs" around the back of the stage, when cast members have to move between exits and entrances without being seen by the audience.

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

Examples may include staging a performance in a non traditional space such as a basement of a building, a side of a hill or, in the case of a busking troupe, the street.

For example, demarcating the boundaries of a stage in an open space by laying a carpet and arranging seating before it.

These terms were common in older theatres, which gave the audience a better view of the action by inclining the floor (known as a raked stage), so upstage actually was at a higher elevation than downstage.

Hann summarises this position by using the hybrid 'stage-scene' when discussing the tensions between the histories of these practices, particularly with reference to original Greek skene as a physical tent or hut that ultimately shaped current conceptualizations of 'the stage'.