{"id":6877,"date":"2025-05-13T13:49:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T13:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6877"},"modified":"2025-05-13T13:52:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T13:52:20","slug":"word-of-the-day-proscenium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/05\/13\/word-of-the-day-proscenium\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Proscenium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the New York Times<\/em>, is proscenium<\/em>. According to the Times<\/em>, the proscenium is the \u201cpart of a modern theater stage between the curtain and the orchestra (i.e., in front of the curtain)\u201d or \u201cthe wall that separates the stage from the auditorium in a modern theater,\u201d although such a wall, were it a complete wall, would make it impossible for the audience to see the stage. Thus, there is usually a big opening in said wall, and theater people refer to what\u2019s left of the wall as the proscenium arch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word seems to have entered the language \u201cc. 1600 \u2026 from Latin proscaenium<\/em>, from Greek prosk\u0113nion<\/em> \u2018the space in front of the scenery,\u2019 also \u2018entrance of a tent,\u2019 from pro<\/em> \u2018in front, before\u2019 (see pro-<\/strong><\/a>) + sk\u0113n\u0113<\/em> \u2018stage, tent, booth\u2019 (see scene<\/strong><\/a>). Modern sense of \u2018space between the curtain and the orchestra\u2019 (often including the curtain and its framework) is attested from 1807. Hence, figuratively, \u2018foreground, front\u2019 (1640s)\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=proscenium).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand how the proscenium became a big arch, one would benefit from knowing a little bit of theater history. For centuries upon centuries, the performers in a theater were pushed out away from the scenery, into the audience. If you can remember the pictures of Shakespeare\u2019s Globe Theater, you will know what I\u2019m talking about. But as theatrical productions moved indoors, and as the plays themselves became more realistic, especially in the nineteenth century, the action was  brought back behind the proscenium arch. We talk about the fourth wall in theater, the invisible wall that let\u2019s the audience see what is going on behind that wall amidst the scenery. And the modern inventions of movies and television (not to mention things like YouTube) have made that fourth wall even more obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, even in modern theaters and movies and television, characters sometimes engage or try to engage directly with the audience; we call this, \u201cbreaking the fourth wall.\u201d Some recent examples include Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off<\/em>, the old Nickolodeon show Clarissa Explains It All<\/em>, and even the original Magnum, PI<\/em>. It can be a clever device, as long as it is not used too often. Interactive theater goes a step further and incorporates the audience into the action, such as Ayn Rand\u2019s The Night of January 16th<\/sup><\/em> in which audience members become the jury, making the outcome of the play different depending upon those audience members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The theater of ancient Greece (where some say theater began) did project the action out into the audience, placing the action in front of the scenery. One can see this in the most famous example of the theater of ancient Greece, the theater at Epidaurus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ethel Dilouambaka (https:\/\/theculturetrip.com\/europe\/greece\/articles\/a-very-brief-history-of-epidaurus-ancient-theater-greece<\/a>), \u201cthe theater of Epidaurus was built in the 4th century BC by Polykleitos the Younger.\u201d That makes the theater over 2300 years old, and yet it is still used today. The theater sits around 12,000 people, but the acoustics are such that people at the top of the seating area (the house is raked or sloped rather than the stage, as in most modern theaters) can hear performers on the stage even though the performers are not using microphones. I have never myself been to Greece, but a close personal friend toured it years ago, and he told me that the tour group he was with tried it out and found it to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Evgenia Mataragka (https:\/\/travelthegreekway.com\/asklepion-sanctuary-in-epidavros\/<\/a>), who was apparently at the site earlier this year, the theater \u201cis part of the large archaeological site of Asklepios sanctuary in the Peloponnese in Greece,\u201d a place which also features the \u201cAsklepios Sanctuary, a UNESCO-listed monument, was the most important religious and healing center in ancient Greek and Roman times. The sanctuary, built between 365 and 335 BCE, had developed pioneer methods for healing and treating their patients.\u201d She calls it the \u201cbirthplace of modern medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mataragka also says, and I believe her, that the city of Athens \u201corganizes spectacular theatrical and musical performances that you can attend,\u201d and since Athens is only about 90 miles away, one can get there pretty easily by car. The site is east of the village of Nafplio, for those of you who read Ty Hutchinson. And she says that the price to visit the site is reasonable and that you can see everything in just a couple of hours, though you could spend longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image today is Mataragka and other tourists visiting the theater at Epidaurus. Check out her website. It makes the idea of travelling to Greece seem appealing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the New York Times, is proscenium. According to the Times, the proscenium is the \u201cpart of a modern theater stage between the curtain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,284,745,137],"class_list":["post-6877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-proscenium","tag-theater","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6879,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6877\/revisions\/6879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}