Theatre in the Home (TITHe) is, as the name suggest, theatre that takes place in the home. In the movie Finding Neverland, J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) stages a performance of his play Peter Pan in the home of Silvia Llewelyn-Davies (Kate Winslet). You do not need a palour as large as Mrs. Llewelyn-Davies', however, to put on a play. With a little imagination any play can be staged at home, no matter how small a space there is.
The good thing about staging a play at home is that you can invite who you want to watch it. There is no chance of a critic being picky about your performance or someone booing or walking out.
Theatre in the Home is sometimes known as Small-Space Theatre
Where do you start?
Don't begin with anything too ambitious. A very short, simple piece can be planned, adapted, rehearsed and performed in a single afternoon or evening.
The Dramatic Arts exist to stimulate the human imagination
This applies not just to the action upon the stage but to the whole process of staging a dramatic production. The stage, the script, the casting, the audience, the scenery, costumes, props, make-up, lighting, music, sound. Everything. Every aspect is open to imaginative interpretation. There is no problem that can not be overcome by using the Imagination.
The Objective of any theatre group is to stage a play
That is the prime and only objective – to stage a play. If your objective is
Drama should be free.
Not only free from constraints, convention and cliche, but also costing nothing to produce and nothing to watch. Let the established theatres charge money and support new plays and playwrights; your objective is to stage a play and it should not be restricted by the necessity of making money from it; conversely it should not be restricted by the need to spend money to produce it – what the pocket can't afford, the imagination must supply.
What this means is that although with money you can put on a lavish production with fantastic sets, costumes and special effects - without money you can still put on a fantastic production but all of the sets, costumes and effects need to be imagined; and since the Dramatic Arts exist to stimulate the human imagination this can only be a good thing.
By all means, if you feel inclined to spend a little money to enhance the production then do so, but remember the prime objective and the power of the imagination.
All the World's a Stage
Any play can be staged in any space no matter how small.
A play need not be staged in a single place. Different scenes can be staged in different rooms, or in different houses, or some inside and some outside. You can even stage different scenes in different places simultaneously and the audience must choose which scene to watch or which character to follow.
Who gets what part
Your first cast will usually be your closest friends. People you've worked with before. It doesn't matter whether they are male or female, or whether you have enough actors for your chosen play.
There are no rules when it comes to casting. Men can play women's roles, women can play men, the young can play old, the old play young. Playing against stereotype can often be very enlightening. Casting men as the three witches in MacBeth, for example, opens up many possibilities:
There is nothing stopping you playing multiple roles. This is common practice for Radio plays, so why not for stage plays? and this solution is ideal if your performance space is particularly small. With a little imagination an actor can create two or more believable characters within the same play; even if those characters ar on stage at the same time.
Here to help
With small spaces usually comes a small cast (even if the characters are numerous)
and there might be some who you would like to include but were unable to do so;
or you might just want to spread the fun of small-space theatre about.
So form other groups and build up a network.
If actors move between groups then a cross-fertilisation of ideas will ensue.
One group may discover, for example, an imaginative way of overcoming a
particular staging problem then this information will be passed on to
other groups.
Information and ideas can of course be shared via websites and message boards;
but inter-group social gatherings are particularly beneficial.
Go on, spread the word!
What to perform and where to get it.
Everything must serve the intention of the dramatic work
Every dramatic work has an intention, or purpose if you like. In narrative-driven pieces (i.e. most plays) the intention is the narrative or storyline; in character-driven pieces the intention is to portray the characters in a sympathetic way to reveal something about the Human Condition. Every other element of the production must be subservient to the Intention. If an element (costume, scenery, etc) does not directly serve the intention then it is probably unnecessary; in fact, only if it is absolutely necessary for an element to be in the piece must it be retained, otherwise it should be discarded. This means that virtually all plays can be performed without lighting and sound effects, without costume, make-up and scenery. Only a minimum number of props are usually necessary and these don't have to be in any way realistic.
The script is not the play
The script contains the dialogue and a few stage directions (entrances, exits and key character movements), but it does not explicitly contain the other essential ingredients of a play: