Theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe").
Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general.
7:84
7:84 was a Scottish left-wing agitprop theatre group. The name comes from a statistic, published in The Economist in 1966, that 7% of the population of the UK owned 84% of the country's wealth (compare the Pareto principle).
The group was originally founded by playwright John McGrath, his wife Elizabeth MacLennan and her brother David MacLennan in 1971, and operated throughout Great Britain. In 1973, it split into 7:84 (England) and 7:84 (Scotland). The English group folded in 1984, having lost its grant from the Arts Council of Great Britain. The Scottish group lost its funding from the Scottish Arts Council in 2006, though Artistic Director Lorenzo Mele successfully secured funding for a further year from April 2007. He subsequently commissioned a series of four plays, Wound by Nicola McCartney, Eclipse by Haresh Sharma, A Time To Go by Selma Dimitrijevic, and Doch-An-Doris (A Parting Drink) by Linda McLean. Together, these short plays formed Re:Union, a production which toured Scotland in early 2007. This was followed in September 2007 by Raman Mundair's The Algebra of Freedom, which also toured extensively throughout Scotland. This production was directed by 7:84's Associate Director, Jo Ronan, and designed by David Sneddon.
Mikron Theatre Company
The Mikron Theatre Company is an English touring theatre company, founded in 1972, which is notable for its tours by canal boat during the summer months, and by road in the spring and autumn. The company believes itself to be the only theatre company in the world which tours by narrowboat.
History
The company had its origins in an Edinburgh Fringe show in 1963. The name "Mikron", as well as being a Greek word meaning "small", is derived from the names of the trio who went to Edinburgh in 1963: MIKe Lucas, Sarah CameRON and RON Legge. In 1972 the company performed its first waterways-themed production, and in 1975 it acquired its narrowboat, Tyseley.
Activities
The company is based in the town of Marsden, in West Yorkshire, although it spends the summer touring throughout the UK canal network. It claims to be "the UK’s most prolific theatre company" and in 2015 performed in 150 venues.
Productions
In 2015 it toured two shows: Raising Agents, written by Maeve Larkin and with music by O'Hooley & Tidow, which celebrated the centenary of the Women's Institutes, and One of Each written by Deborah McAndrew, about fish and chips and much else.
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