Theater or theatre is a collective form of theatrical acting art that uses live performers, most commonly actors or actresses, to bring the theatrical experience of an imagined or real event to a live stage, often a stage set. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with "theater" or "thespian." Unlike music, theatre is purely an interpretation and the mediums used include acting, music, dance, spectacle, and computer-generated. A play or a musical show typically consists of five to seven acts (or scenes). The acts make up the story's plot, where the acting is the central point of the drama.
Theatre has two aspects: the stage itself and the on-screen or visible audience. The audience consists of people watching the actors on-stage and the actors and actresses enacting the different roles. In theaters, there is also a secondary or supporting audience who listen to, or sometimes copy, the actors and actresses and, in some cases, ooh and aah at the visual beauty of the artistic beauty presented on-screen. The actors in most theatrical works are the actors, the most common of which are the actors themselves, with some exceptions such as the classical theater where background dancers also act. Professional actors are often called the "professionals" or the "scriptwriters."
On-screen acting occurs in independent films and Hollywood blockbusters, in which a single actor plays the lead role or featured character in a given production. Still, in live theatre, the only actors on-screen are the actors performing the roles. There are two types of actors performing in live theatre: on-screen and non-on-screen actors. On-screen actors include the director, the writer, the producers, the star, and sometimes the entire cast. Non-on-screen actors are usually the background characters, the extras that appear in the background during a scene, and sometimes the ones speaking during a scene. In films, non-on-screen actors are sometimes referred to as extras, although they are always present on-screen.
There are two kinds of theater. An actor and actress, along with the other performers, are on stage together. In this type of performance, the actors must be able to synchronize correctly to create their characters' effect on the audience. The other kind of theater is the off-stage theater. In this kind of performance, the actors and actresses are not on stage together; they are separated using a stage or some other movable object. During a play, musical theater, or a film, the actors and actresses are on stage together, while during the breaks between them may go off stage to rest. The noh stage is an example of the first. After the curtain rises, the actors and actresses must get back on stage as quickly as possible to continue the action.
In today's modern theater, the noh stage has been integrated into traditional Japanese theaters. This type of theater is seen throughout the country, with the most popular drama being the Shimada Kambei (The Ancient Three), which is performed at the Meiji shrine in central Kyoto. Today, the word "shimada" means historical or divine. Some theaters also use the term hanamichi to mean "rest" or connect the audience to the past. Many theaters also use the word kuro, which means "action," to describe dramatic scenes.
