Is Crash Course Theater and this is

Yorick.

More on him later.

(Crash Course theme plays)

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So maybe you're a part of your school theater program,

Maybe you're a Broadway musical devotee, maybe you've just been waiting for a

Series that would explain things like, what are are these

Phalluses doing in Greek drama? And

Who thought neoclassicism was a good idea?

And the Theatre of Cruelty, why so mean?

If that's the show that you're after then great, have a seat.

We've explored several plays in Crash Course Literature,

Mostly Greek tragedies and Shakespearean

Tragedies, and we'll be looking at plays in Crash Course Theater,

But we'll be doing a lot more than that too. We'll

Explore theater's history, its theories, and even

Its performance technologies, from the Greeks

Right into the modern era. Thunder sheets, fog

Machines, rotating gobos. Because reading a

Play is great but if you've attended live theater then

You know that it's a different and pretty extraordinary

Experience to see that play performed right

In front of you. We're going to investigate how that experience

Is produced and what it's meant throughout history

To theater going audiences. Theater going at

Least when they aren't running off to go see rope dancers, or

Consorting with prostitutes, or heading out to grab a beer and a chicken

Leg. Audiences are tricky but we say it's worth

Staying in your seat. Why?

Because theater is the art form most like life.

It's performed by real people, in

Real space, in real time, and it's often a way

To work out our ideas about the social conflicts

And problems of the day. Theater

Is a laboratory for life.

Plays explore how people feel about government, and religion, and birth

And death, and love, and each other. And sometimes

They explore how it's funny to put on a wig and tell lewd jokes. So really just

Something for everyone. And oh, just so you know,

I won't be teaching you how to act, or direct, or write

Plays, or hang lights, or...

Sew phalluses onto costumes.

Not because I don't love making theater, I actually--I've been making

Theater since I was a kid and before YouTube

I was actually a full-time professional

Theater artist making multimedia performance art in New York.

And I still do that stuff occasionally don't worry

I'll invite you to my one man show. So it's not like we don't find the

Nuts and bolts of theater exciting, quite the opposite.

But here we're mostly concerned with

Theater's history, technology, and its

Cultural significance on the whole. I'll tell you about

Greek tragedy, and Roman comedy, and

Classical Japanese theater, and how

Theater returns to the west because of one Nun.

We'll see cycle plays, and passion plays,

And commedia dell'arte, and Shakespeare obviously, but also

Renaissance writers other than Shakespeare. We'll cover really long

French plays, and shorter Spanish ones, and classical Indian drama,

And melodrama, and symbolism, and dadaism, and expressionism

And futurism, and all the -isms!

Well some of the -isms. A very reasonable number of -isms.

And I promise at least one mention

Of Hamilton. Until then, exit Mike Rugnetta,

And I mean could we end a theater show any way

Other than, curtain!

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