Words to know
media
Ways of communicating with many people: radio, film, television, the internet, streaming and social media.
live theatre
A performance happening in the same space and time as its audience.
adaptation
A new version of a story made for a different form or medium, such as a film made into a stage musical.
radio drama
A play performed only with voices, music and sound effects, for listeners.
close-up
A camera shot that shows a face or object very large, so small details are visible.
projection (voice)
Making your voice carry clearly to the back of the audience without shouting.
cinematic staging
Theatre staging borrowed from film: fast scene changes, cross-cutting, video and close-up-like spotlights.
liveness
The feeling of sharing the same moment with performers, where anything could happen.
Remember from Grade 7
In Grade 7 you compared social values in drama forms from different times and places (Everyman, kabuki, Elizabethan theatre, The Farm Show, Indigenous theatre in Canada today), and you described how theatre and festivals contribute to life today.
In Grade 8 you will analyse the influence of the media: how radio, film, TV, streaming and social media have changed what theatre stages, how it looks, how actors perform, and who gets to see it.
Have you seen a play on a screen?
Maybe you've watched a filmed musical at home, a school concert on a livestream, or a funny scene from a stage show on social media. Before radio, film and television, the only way to see a play was to be there.
Each new medium has changed drama. And drama has changed media right back. Today you'll become a media detective for the stage.
How media have influenced drama
Radio drama. Before television, families gathered around the radio to listen to plays made only of voices, music and sound effects. On October 30, 1938, the American radio program The Mercury Theatre on the Air, led by Orson Welles, performed The War of the Worlds, based on H. G. Wells's novel, as if it were a series of real news bulletins about an alien invasion. Some listeners were reportedly fooled, although historians now think newspapers exaggerated how much panic there was. It showed how powerful a drama could be when it borrowed the style of the news.
Television. In Canada, CBC Television began broadcasting in 1952. TV brought drama into living rooms every week. Many actors, writers and directors work in both theatre and TV.
Film into theatre. Many stage musicals are adaptations of films. Disney's animated film The Lion King (1994) became a stage musical that opened on Broadway in 1997, using puppets, masks and costumes to turn animated animals into live performers.
Theatre onto screens. Since 2009, National Theatre Live has broadcast plays from London's National Theatre to cinemas, including cinemas in Canada. In July 2020, when theatres were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, a filmed performance of the musical Hamilton was released on a streaming service. Come From Away, a musical by the Canadian writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein, about how the people of Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, welcomed thousands of airline passengers whose planes were diverted there in September 2001, was released as a filmed stage performance in 2021.
Social media. In 2020, people on TikTok began creating songs, dances and set designs for an imaginary musical based on the film Ratatouille. On January 1, 2021, professional performers presented Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical as an online benefit show for The Actors Fund, a charity that supports people who work in entertainment.