Little Theatre Movement

As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theatre as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. In several large cities, beginning with Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and Detroit, companies formed to produce more intimate, non-commercial, and reform-minded entertainments.

History

Conventional theater in 19th-century America

Sensational melodramas had entertained theatre audiences since the mid-19th century, drawing larger and larger audiences. These types of formulaic works could be produced over and over again in splendid halls in big cities and by touring companies in smaller ones. During the last decades of the century, producers and playwrights began to create narratives dealing with social problems, albeit usually on a sensational level. While not yet totally free of melodramatic elements, plays reflecting a style more associated with realism gradually emerged. During a secret meeting in 1895, the owners of most of the theatres across America organized into a Theatrical Syndicate "to control competition and prices." This group, which included all major producers, "effectively stifled dramatic experimentation for many years" in search of greater profits. Nevertheless, by the second decade of the 20th century, pure melodrama, with its typed characters and exaggerated plots, had become the province of motion pictures.

Little Theatre

Little Theatre or Little Theater may refer to:

In Canada

In Great Britain

In England

In Scotland

In India

In Ireland

In New Zealand

In the United States