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Albert Bassermann
(1867–1952),German actor, nephew of August Bassermann, who made his first appearance at Mannheim under his uncle's management and was with the Meininger company from 1890 to 1895. Under Otto ...
Alexander Blok
(b. St Petersburg, 28 Nov. 1880; d. Petrograd, 7 Aug. 1921)Poet and playwright. His first book of poetry was published in 1904, and he became the leading figure in ...
Antony Sher
(1949– ),South African-born actor, who trained in London and then worked at the Everyman, Liverpool, Nottingham Playhouse, and the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh; in the West End; and at the ...
arja
Sung, secular dance-drama from the island of Bali in Indonesia that developed in the early twentieth century and remains popular today. Arja relies on the interdependence of vocal and instrumental ...
bangsawan
Popular Malaysian and Indonesian commercial urban theatre. Parsi theatre troupes touring from Bombay in the 1880s are believed to have provided the model. Bangsawan was Malaysia's (and later ...
barong
Large mythical supernatural beasts that appear in Balinese ritual performances. Different types of large barong masks, considered spiritually powerful objects when consecrated, are used in rituals ...
Bert Lahr
(b. New York, 13 Aug. 1895; d. New York, 4 Dec. 1967)Comedian and actor. From 1910 he worked in burlesque and vaudeville, making his Broadway debut in the revue ...
Bert Williams
(1876–1922)*African-American performer. In the 1890s Williams formed a partnership with George Walker and for over ten years produced and starred in popular shows including In Dahomey, Abyssinia, ...
Bill Irwin
(1950– )American clown, dancer, actor, and director. Irwin's marriage of physical virtuosity and mischief-making has appealed to critics and mass audiences alike. His self-effacing persona and ...
Billy Merson
(1881–1947)English pantomime and variety artist. Born in Nottingham, he was briefly a circus clown and part of a music-hall double act called Keith and Merson. An acrobat, he was ...
burlesque
In the Restoration and eighteenth-century English theatre the word ‘burlesque’ was applied to plays like Fielding's Tragedy of Tragedies and Sheridan's The Critic, which were parodies of contemporary ...
Burma
Burma has suffered years of repression in the grip of a military regime that renamed it MyanmarBurma consists largely of the central fertile valley of the Irrawaddy River, encircled by a ...
carpa
A nineteenth-century Mexican itinerant circus. The ancient Quechua term for a covering of interwoven branches, carpa came to signify in Spanish a canvas covering or tent and, finally, a circus. ...
character
In narrative generally, a character is a person depicted within a story, either through description or direct speech; in drama the term usually refers only to persons portrayed by actors. ...
Charles Dibdin
(1745–1814),actor, dramatist, and song‐writer, is best remembered for his sea songs, including ‘The Lass that Loved a Sailor’ and ‘Tom Bowling’. He wrote many musical entertainments (including The ...
Charles Macklin
(?1699–1797),an Irish‐born actor who made his reputation by his impersonation of Shylock. He wrote several plays, of which the most successful were Love à la Mode, performed 1759, and The Man of the ...
circus
In Roman times a place of exhibition for chariot racing and athletic and gladiatorial contests. In its modern sense it dates from the mid-18th century. Mainly itinerant, it is performed ...
circus
In 1919 the Georgian artist Nikolai Foregger lectured the Union of International Artists of the Circus on his conviction in a renaissance of the circus. He evoked theatre as the ...
clown Reference library
The Companion to Theatre and Performance
A dramatic *character serving stock comic functions, generally defined by the performer for whom the role was intended. The theatrical clown was literally a dim-witted rustic, found on the ...
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clown Reference library
The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre
The word made its first appearance in the English language in the sixteenth century, derived from the term ‘clod’ or
