THEATRE IN GREAT BRITAIN
| Britain is one of the world’s major centers for theatre and has a long and rich dramatic tradition. It’s interesting to know that the first theatre was opened more than 400 years ago under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I. Nowadays both classical and modern repertoire is presented in British theatres. Works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Congreve and Sheridan as well as by such modern writers as Alan Bennett, Simon Gray, Christopher Hampton and David Edgar are demanded in the country and abroad. Earnings from British theatrical productions overseas are more than 110 million pounds a year. | ||||||
| There are also experimental theatres in Great Britain. There are mime theatres, street theatres, theatres that represent the cultures of the black, Asian and other ethnic minorities. In every town and village amateur dramatic groups gather to perform plays, pantomimes, musicals and many others. There are more than 6,000 amateur dramatic groups in England alone. There are two types of theatres in Great Britain: | 
theRoyalNationalTheatre
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| subsidized and commercial. Subsidized theatres (the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and the Royal Opera House) have permanent company of directors, actors, designers and etc. and each season they stage several productions. For this reason such companies are called repertory companies. Commercial theatres are those which receive no subsidy. A commercial theatre is simply a building with no permanent company. | ||||||
The Royal Opera House
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| The centre of theatrical activity in Britain is London. It shows more plays than any other city and enjoys a high standard of acting. There are about 48 principal theatres in or near the West End and around 8 in the suburbs. They are very different; some theatres concentrate on the classics and serious drama, some on light comedy, variety shows, some on musicals. These include the National Theatre and the Old Vic on the South Bank, the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park and the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. | ||||
| Music in all its forms — pop music, folk music, jazz, light music and brass bands — plays an important role in British cultural life. The widespread interest in classical music is reflected in the large audiences at orchestral concerts and at performances of opera, ballet and chamber music. Regular seasons of opera and ballet are given at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The greatest opera singers of the world can be heard there. The West End is said to have more theatres, more shows and larger audiences than Broadway in New York. A great many British productions have world wide success and move from the West End to Broadway. The great musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber, including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, run for years in London and New York simultaneously, and in theatres throughout the world. Cats has been played for 30 years in the West End and it is considered to be the world’s most successful musical. | ||||||
| Cultural reference: § The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company. From its foundation in 1963 until 1976, the company was based at the Old Vic theatre in Waterloo. The National Theatre is three theatres under one roof, which offer a wide mixture of plays: new works, revivals of ancient and modern classics, contemporary foreign plays, and experimental drama. The National Theatre has an annual turnover of approximately £54 million. § Open-Air Theatre is an outdoor theatre in the centre of Regent’s Park, which represents mainly Shakespeare in traditional style. Performances are given in summer. | 
the Open Air Theatre
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the Old Vic
| § The Royal Opera House is an opera house situated in the London district of Covent Garden. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden". It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The Royal Opera House seats 2,268 people. § The Old Vic is a theatre established in 1818. The Old Vic is a home for classic and new drama. In 2003, American actor Kevin Spacey was appointed as new artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre Company which received considerable media attention. | |||||
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