Theater Education

A small, independent theater is about the love of films that are shown there. Your customers love movies and you love to show them movies. Why not let them enjoy their favorite classics and oldies in the most comfortable theater seating? It doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult to create a great environment in your small, independent theater.

What makes a great theater? First off, the movies you show is what gets people to come to your theater. But the way to get them to come back is to create a great environment that is comfortable, fun and relaxing. Touches like comfortable theater seating, a great concession stand, great sound and theater lighting can all enhance the experience of your customers and turn them into return customers.

For your customers, they want a different experience. That is why they are frequenting an independent theater, instead of a big chain. These customers are looking for a community feeling instead of a faceless corporation. But they also want the comfort and convenience of a larger theater.

Here are a couple of tips on how to take your independent theater space from good to great:

- Great concessions. Be creative in the things you offer people to snack on while they enjoy their movie. For example, instead of just popcorn, why not offer kettle corn or caramel corn or cheese popcorn? Or a bar with a choice of toppings for your popcorn? Read the rest of this entry »

Theater is one of the oldest forms of performing art. From the stone ages, men and women have been telling stories by enacting them when even no language existed. Ancient Greek theater still inspires us and they continue to be staged in all languages of the world. The ancient Hindu scriptures regard the text of the theory of performing arts (Natya Shashtra) as the fifth Veda (Pancham Veda). And just like the Greek theater, ancient Indian Sanskrit theater were also highly developed. However, with the advent of film and television, theater has been facing an uphill battle to pull in the crowd.

The playwrights, and theater companies and groups had to reinvent themselves in many ways. Occasionally they have been successful, but still we have a long way to go. Technological advances in the film and television media keeps on attracting the audience with their glitz and glamor. But we fail to realize, theater has its own charm. Thornton Wilder, the famous playwright, once said, “I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. This supremacy of theater derives from fact that it is always ‘now’ on the stage.”

There is something magical in watching an ensemble of actors performing on the stage in front of you, telling you a story that you share with a room full of people. Arthur Miller said, “My feeling is that people in a group, en masse, watching something, react differently and perhaps more profoundly than they do in their living rooms”. When we watch live theater on stage we can feel ourselves, we can see ourselves – when we watch a good theater we almost go through a life changing experience. Read the rest of this entry »