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27-756: The Brian Friel Theatre is a studio theatre located at Queen's University Belfast , Northern Ireland . It was opened in February 2009 and is named after the Irish playwright , theatre director and author , Brian Friel . The Theatre is part of the University's School of Languages, Literature and Performing Arts and the Brian Friel Centre for Theatre Research. It provides space for student drama teaching, rehearsals and performances and hosts both student and professional performances and events such as

54-642: A black box theater can be adapted from other spaces, such as hotel conference rooms. This is common at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where the larger venues will hire entire buildings and divide each room to be rented out to several theater companies . "The Black Box Theatre" in Oslo, Norway , and the Alvina Krause Studio at Northwestern University are theaters of this type. Black box theaters have also been known to come with

81-549: A common organising group that handles ticketing, scheduling, and some overall promotion (such as a program including all performers). Each production pays a set fee to this group, which usually includes their stage time as well as the organizational elements. The organising group and/or the venues often rely on a large pool of volunteers. Ticket pricing varies between festivals. At UK fringe festivals, groups can decide their own ticket prices, and some sell tickets at fixed rates in one or two tiers, or in groups of 5 or 10. Although it

108-588: A handful of disadvantages. The open space may leave "too many" options that can leave many at a loss for direction or inspiration. Lighting issues arise as the primary lighting is typically above the performance area. During blackout scenes, the close proximity of the audience allows them to still see the transitions happening on stage. Black box spaces also see success within the music industry. These spaces are known to be used to host vocal and instrumental performances, rehearsals, shows, and competitions. Most older black boxes were built like television studios , with

135-480: A low pipe grid overhead. Newer black boxes typically feature catwalks or tension grids , the latter combining the flexibility of the pipe grid with the accessibility of a catwalk. They were designed to be able to be spaces that can be molded into different settings easily for multiple performances. Black box theaters accommodate smaller audiences with the goal of having more intimate experiences. The interiors of most black box theatres are painted black, although that

162-735: A new theatre in 1969. In 1969, Haynes created the Arts Lab in London , but it only lasted for two years. Peter Brook along with another American Charles Marowitz opened the Open Space Theatre on Tottenham Court Road in London in 1968. Young British writers, after the May 1968 events in France , wrote agitprop plays, including David Hare , Howard Brenton , David Edgar . Meanwhile, in

189-679: Is also considered by many to be a place where more "pure" theatre can be explored, with the most human and least technical elements in focus. The concept of a building designed for flexible staging techniques can be attributed to Swiss designer Adolphe Appia , circa 1921. The invention of such a stage instigated a half-century of innovations in the relationship between audience and performers. This idea would again be re-visited by Harley Granville Barker , using Appia's design as his basis. Barker would have ideas of directing productions in “a great white box,” which would see success in 1970. As time went on, black boxes were decided on instead as black provided

216-429: Is not exclusive (a black box doesn't have to be black to be considered a black box, though black is most common). The absence of colour not only gives the audience a sense of "anyplace" (and thus allows flexibility from play to play or from scene to scene), it also allows for an innovative lighting design to shine through. The architecture of black box theaters typically allow for easy modifications and decorations, but at

243-744: Is the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club , Jerzy Grotowski 's Theatre of 13 Rows, and Józef Szajna 's Studio Theatre in Warsaw. The Adelaide Fringe in Adelaide , South Australia, now second-largest annual arts festival in the world (after Edinburgh Fringe), started in 1960 as an adjunct to the main Adelaide Festival of Arts . Haynes, while at the helm of the Traverse, was receiving state support and even got

270-507: Is the method used to choose participants. Typically, conventional festivals use a jury selection process, whereas many fringe festivals do not use a jury process in their selection criteria, hence the descriptor unjuried or open-access. There are exceptions to this; some fringe festivals (e.g., New York International Fringe Festival ) do employ a jury-based selection process. All performers are welcome to apply, regardless of their professional or amateur status. No restrictions are made as to

297-437: Is unusual for the organising group to choose any winners of the festival, other organisations often make their own judgements of festival entries . Productions can be reviewed by newspapers or publications specific to the festival, and awards may be given by certain organisations. Awards or favourable reviews can increase the tickets sales of productions or lead to extra dates being added . The limitations and opportunities that

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324-655: The Belfast International Arts Festival . The Brian Friel Theatre is located on University Square and shares its building with the Queen's Film Theatre . 54°35′08″N 5°56′02″W  /  54.58545°N 5.93395°W  / 54.58545; -5.93395 Studio theatre Black box theaters have their roots in the American avant-garde of the early 20th century. The black box theaters became popular and increasingly widespread in

351-602: The Bush Theatre and King's Head Theatre , both of whom survived the crash. 7:84 and Red Ladder Theatre Company were some of the surviving touring fringe groups. Fringe theatres were attractive to people in the 1960s due to their adventurousness but became less wild in the 1970s while the standards of production rose. In 1982, the first fringe festival in North America was started in Edmonton , Alberta. It

378-470: The 1960s as rehearsal spaces. Almost any large room can be transformed into a "black box" with the aid of paint or curtains, making black box theaters an easily accessible option for theater artists. Storefronts, church basements, and old trolley barns were some examples of the earliest versions of spaces transformed into black box theaters. Sets are simple and small and costs are lower, appealing to nonprofit and low-income artists or companies. The black box

405-738: The 1960s, similar to the United States' Off-Off-Broadway theatres and Europe's "free theatre" groups. The term came into use in the late 1950s, and the show Beyond the Fringe premiered in Edinburgh in 1960, before transferring to Broadway and is the West End . One of the early innovators in fringe theatre was an American bookseller, James Haynes , who in 1963 created the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. Also noted in this period

432-599: The Playbox Theatre, and functioned as an experimental space for Brown's larger venue, the Pasadena Playhouse . Such spaces are easily built and maintained. Black box theaters are usually home to plays or other performances requiring very basic technical arrangements, such as limited set construction . Common floor plans include thrust stage , modified thrust stage, and theater in the round . Universities and other theater training programs employ

459-479: The United States, experimental theatre was growing due to the political protest of the Vietnam War . The Living Theatre , founded by Julian Beck , is considered the leader of the " flower power " and "hippie" movement. By the early 1970s, many fringe theatres began to receive small subsidies. After the 1973–74 stock market crash , many fringe companies were forced to close. New playwrights were established at

486-560: The audience and actors, while it still physically remains. Many theater training programs will have both a large proscenium theater, as well as a black box theater. Not only does this allow two productions to be mounted simultaneously, but they can also have a large extravagant production in the main stage while having a small experimental show in the black box. Black box spaces are also popular at fringe theater festivals; due to their simple design and equipment they can be used for many performances each day. This simplicity also means that

513-404: The black box theater because the space is versatile and easy to change. The black backdrop can encourage the audience to focus on the actors, furthering the benefits. Additionally, as the audience is now closer to the stage due to the lack of a proscenium , a more intimate atmosphere is able to be created. This intimate space may also serve to try and eliminate the implied mental distance between

540-612: The expense of time and monetary cost. Fringe theater Fringe theatre is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . In London , the fringe are small-scale theatres, many of them located above pubs, and the equivalent to New York's Off-Off-Broadway theatres and Europe's "free theatre" groups. In unjuried theatre festivals, also known as fringe festivals or open-access festivals , all submissions are accepted, and sometimes

567-529: The fringe festival format presents lead to some common features. Shows are not judged or juried. Depending on the popularity, some fringe festivals may use a lottery system to determine which shows are selected. Shows are typically technically sparse. They are commonly presented in shared venues, often with shared technicians and limited technical time, so sets and other technical theatre elements are kept simple. Venues may be adapted from other uses. Casts tend to be smaller than mainstream theatre; since many of

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594-502: The mass gathering at the festival. In 1948, Robert Kemp , a Scottish journalist and playwright, described the situation, "Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before ... I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!". Edinburgh Festival Fringe was founded under the name "Festival Adjuncts", in 1947 . The fringe movement in Britain has been said to start in

621-570: The most neutral setting for productions. Antonin Artaud also had ideas of a stage of this kind. The first flexible stage in America was located in the home living room of actor and manager Gilmor Brown in Pasadena, California. While the domestic decor meant that Brown's stage was not a proper black box, the idea was still a revolutionary one. This venue, and two subsequent permutations, are known as

648-535: The nature, style or theme of the performance, though some festivals have children's areas with appropriate content limitations. Festivals may have too many applicants for the number of available spaces; in this case, applicants are chosen based on an unrelated criterion, such as order of application or a random draw. The number of performances varies among different fringe festivals. Larger festivals may have thousands of performances (e.g., Edinburgh's 2013 festival had 45,464 performances). Fringe festivals typically have

675-530: The participating acts may be chosen by lottery, in contrast to juried festivals in which acts are selected based on their artistic qualities. Unjuried festivals (such as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe , Edmonton Fringe Festival , Adelaide Fringe , and Fringe World ) permit artists to perform a wide variety of works. In 1947, eight theatre companies showed up at the Edinburgh International Festival , hoping to gain recognition from

702-646: The performing groups are traveling, and venues (and thus potential income) tend to be fairly small, expenses must usually be kept to a minimum. One-person shows are therefore quite common at fringe festivals. Fringe festival productions often showcase new scripts, especially ones on more obscure, edgy, or unusual material. The lack of artistic vetting combined with relatively easy entry make risk-taking more feasible. While most mainstream theatre shows are two or three acts long, taking two to three hours with intermissions, fringe shows tend to be closer to one-hour, single-act productions. The typically lowered ticket prices of

729-635: Was then a theatre component of the larger Summerfest but evolved to become a stand-alone event, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival , one of the largest annual arts events in Canada and still the largest fringe in North America by attendance. The oldest fringe festival in the United States is Orlando , FL, founded in 1992. There are more fringe festivals in North America than any other continent. One distinction between fringe festivals and conventional arts festivals

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