Theatre Spaces, part 3
A thrust theatre has audience members on three sides of the stage,leaving one side for taller scenery. It is sometimes called "three quarterround". The Ancient Greek and Elizabethan stages were thrust stages;
the major benefit of this style of stage is that it brings the actor intocloser proximity with the audience. Three front rows along each of threesides of the stage means that many more audience members will be close tothe actors. On the other hand, the areas for scenery storage and the methodsof hiding scenic machinery are greatly reduced. Tall scenery (walls, backdrops)cannot be placed anywhere except on the one side of the stage where no oneis seated. Theatrical illusion is greatly reduced on the thrust stage becausemost audience members will not see a framed theatrical event but will seeboth the events on the stage and across the stage to audience members seatedopposite.
Thrust theatres have regained popularity in the twentieth century. Famoustheatres with thrust stages today include the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis(see photo), the Olivier at the Royal National Theatre in London, and theFestival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario.
Most terms for parts of the proscenium stage are the same, or slightlyadapted, in a thrust theatre. For example, up and downstage are relativeto the one wall with no audience seating. Some terms do not apply; thereare rarely fly lofts or wings in a thrust theatre. An additional structureoften found is the vomitorium, a structure for performers' entrancesthat originated in ancient Roman theatres. This is a ramp that begins underneaththe audience seating and leads to the downstage end of the thrust stage;often there are two vomitoria -- one leading to each downstage corner. Itis used to bring actors and scenery on and offstage.
An arena stage has audience members seated on all sides of a squareor circular stage. It is the oldest kind of performance space, dating backto ancient rituals probably before recorded history. No such buildings remaintoday; however, the circular orchestra found in the ruins of ancient Greektheatres point to older performance traditions before the construction ofstone theatres. An arena theatre maximizes the connection between performersand audience, while minimizing the possibility for theatrical illusion. Manyarena theatres have been built in the second half of the twentieth century;they include the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. and Circle in the Squarein New York City.
Throughout the twentieth century theatre practitioners have considereddifferent theatrical arrangements appropriate to different kinds of playsor different playing styles. The German director Max Reinhardt was amongthe first to advocate a theatre complex in which there are several kindsof theatres, such as a large proscenium or thrust house and a smaller arenastage, and to suggest that different plays require different kinds of theatres.NewYork's Lincoln Center, London's Royal National Theatre and Barbican Center,Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, and Chicago's Goodman Theatre are examples ofsuch theatre complexes. A similar twentieth century trend is to design aflexible theatre in which the audience and stage areas can be rearrangedto form any of the three basic arrangements. 
The American Repertory Theatre's Loeb Center (see photo) in Cambridge isan example. The black box theatre (such as we have at Geneseo) isa simple solution to the theatre artist's desire to make the space fit theproduction: it is simply a room painted black, in which audience seating,stage platforms, lighting and scenery can be placed anywhere in the roomand changed for each play.
