AMERICAN THEATER

The birth of professional theater in America may have begun with the Lewis Hall troupe that arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1752. A theater was built in Williamsburg in 1716, and, in January 1736, the original Dock Street Theatre was opened in Charles Town, South Carolina. The Hallams were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe and bring them to the colonies. The most popular a repertoire of plays in London at the time are Hamlet, The Recruiting Officer, and Richard III. Lewis Hallam founded the American Company, opened a theater in New York, and presented the first professionally mounted American play—The Prince of Parthia. Vaudeville was common in the late 19th and early 20th century. George Burns was a very long-lived American comedian who started out in the vaudeville community. By the beginning of the 20th century the stars of this era, such as Ethel Barrymore and John Drew, were often seen as even more important than the show itself. The Amateur Comedy Club was founded in New York City in 1884. It was organized by seven gentlemen who broke away from the Madison Square Dramatic Organization, a socially prominent company presided over by Mrs. James Brown Potter and David Belasco. The ACC staged its first performance in 1885. Today earlier styles of theater such as minstrel shows and Vaudeville acts have disappeared from the landscape, but theater remains a popular American art form. At the same time, theater has also served as a platform for expression, and a venue for identity exploration for under-represented, minority communities, who have formed their own companies and created their own genres of works, notably East West Players, founded in 1965. Smaller urban theaters have stayed a source of innovation, and regional theaters remain an important part of theater life. Drama is also taught in high schools and colleges, which was not done in previous eras, and many become interested in theater through this.

THE ARCHITECTUTE OF GRAT BRITAIN

Architecture is the art of building in which human requirements and construction materials are related so as to furnish practical use as well as an aesthetic solution, thus differing from the pure utility of engineering construction. In most architecture there is no one vantage point from which the whole structure can be understood. The use of light and shadow, as well as surface decoration, can greatly enhance a structure.

The architecture of Great Britain has a long history. The analysis of building types provides an insight into past cultures and eras. Behind each of the greater styles lies not a casual trend nor a vogue, but a period of serious and urgent experimentation directed toward answering the needs of a specific way of life. Climate, methods of labor, available materials, and economy of means all impose their dictates. Each of the greater styles has been aided by the discovery of new construction methods. Evolutionary process is exemplified by the history of modern architecture, which developed from the first uses of structural iron and steel in the mid-19th century.

Until the 20th century there were three great developments in architectural construction—the post-and-lintel, or trabeated system; the arch system, either the cohesive type, employing plastic materials hardening into a homogeneous mass, or the thrust type, in which the loads are received and counterbalanced at definite points; and the modern steel-skeleton system. In the 20th century new forms of building have been devised, with the use of reinforced concrete and the development of geodesic and stressed-skin (light material, reinforced) structures.

Ancient monuments in great britain

Causewayed camps - these are some of the oldest remains in the English landscape, dating from around 3500 B.C. They consist of a series of from one to four concentric rings of banks and ditches enclosing an area up to 9 hectares. Long barrows - these are Neolithic (New Stone Age) tombs which are roughly contemporary with the causewayed camps. There are two main types of long barrows: those made entirely of earth, called, earthen long barrows, and those made with a chamber of large stones, called megalithic or chambered long barrows. Passage graves - really another type of long barrow, these arc Neolithic tombs begun a few centuries after the barrows, consisting of a central chamber reached by a narrow, low passage, all of stones. Stone circles - the French archaeologist Jean-Pierre Mohan in his book Le Monde des Megalithes described the unusual concentration of stone circles in the British Isles. Hill figures - here and there throughout England, usually on the slopes of the chalk hills of the south, are incised figures of huge proportions cut into the earth. Often visible for miles around, these hill figures give off an air of ancient sanctity. The White Horse of Uffington has recently been dated to 2000 B.C., a good millennium older than had been thought. Henges - basically a simple bank and ditch enclosing an area of land. The bank is outside the ditch, so they would not have been defensive enclosures, but were more likely a form of religious and ceremonial gathering place. Other henges to visit include Avebury, Durrington Walls, and Woodhenge, all in Wiltshire, and Arbor Low in Derbyshire. Barrow mounds - these are the most numerous of the prehistoric monuments we are likely to encounter. On Ordnance Survey maps these are often marked as "tumuli". Though most tumuli are Bronze Age, this burial form remained in use into the Iron Age and even reappeared in the Dark Ages. Barrows were a new form of tomb brought to England by the Beaker People around 2200 B.C. Hill forts - dating from the Iron Age these hilltop enclosures are the youngest of the prehistoric remains to be seen. They are defensive structures enclosing high places with rings of ditches and banks. Often there were wooden or stone walls atop the banks as a further barrier. In some cases a series of concentric ditches and banks were built. The hill forts do not seem to have been places of permanent settlement, but may have been emergency assembly points for tribes, or the case of the smaller forts, even single families. There are thousands of hill forts throughout the British Isles in various stages of repair, though the most spectacular is without a doubt Maiden Castle in Dorset, while Uffington in Oxfordshire is well worth a visit.

THE ROMANS AND THEIR ARCHITECTURE

Roman Britain can refer to those portions of island of 'Great Britain' ruled by the ‘Roman Empire’ during the fourth century AD. This province was called 'Britannia' by the Romans. Before the invasion of the Roman Empire, 'Iron Age Britain' had eсоnоmic and cultural links with 'Continental Europe’. Novel developments in urbanization, agriculture, architecture and industry were introduced by the invaders. The architecture of the Roman occupation of: excluding primitive hut dwellings, and such prehistoric monuments as Stonehengc and Maiden Castle, the oldest buildings in England were erected during this period. Features were similar to Roman architecture in other provinces of the Empire, being less ambitious and elaborate than those of the city of Rome. Public buildings were generally grouped round the forum or market place, as at St Albans .Domestic town houses are best studied at St. Albans, where the streets form a chess board pattern; the houses were centrally heated by hot air, equipped with baths, and provided with mosaic floors. Larger dwellings include palaces, such as Fishboume near Chichester, and villas or country houses from which farming was carried on, some of them having over 50 rooms. Roman Architecture was responsible for the development of:

1) Basilicas

2) Baths

3) Amphitheaters

4) Triumphal arches

5) Villas

6) Roman Temples

7) Roman Roads

8) Roman Towns and Stockades

9) Roman Towns like Londinium

10) Aquaducts