WStreet theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves, college or university campus and street corners. They are especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are large numbers of people. The actors who perform street theatre range from buskers to organised theatre companies or groups that want to experiment with performance spaces, or to promote their mainstream work. It was a source of providing information to people when there were no sources of providing information like television, radio etc. Nowadays, street play is used to convey a message to the crowd watching it. Street play is considered to be the rawest form of acting, because one does not have a microphone or loud speakers.
WBariga Boys is a 2009 Nigerian documentary about street performers Segun Adefila and the Crown Troupe, who use guerrilla theatre, music and drama to address issues of poverty in the slums of Bariga in Lagos.
WCarros de Foc is a street theater company with its headquarters in Alicante (Spain). Their unique traits in the shows are the Giant Mobile Sculptures that are combined with different artistic disciplines in order to create surprising shows. The Company has represented Spain in different Street Theater Festivals around Europe and Africa.
WClose-Act Theatre is an international street theatre company that was founded in 1991 in the Netherlands. The group originates from collaboration of designers, actors, dancers, choreographers and musicians, all the disciplines are combined. Close-Act is a street theatre company in the Netherlands and most of their performances are made for an audience of 5.000 to 10.000 people. The artistic directors of Close-Act are Hesther Melief and Tonny Aerts.
WDesperate Men Theatre Company is a street theatre company founded by Richie Smith and Jon Beedell in 1980, and is the UK's longest-running street theatre company. Now based in Bristol, England, the company aims to produce original, accessible comic theatre, and offers a variety of street animations, bespoke work, and creative consultancy.
WDulce Compania is a performance-theater company based in Berlin, Germany. The company was formed in 2003 by a Chilean, Marjorie Ibaceta Chau, and a German, Marko Bubke-Chau. In 2007, the Chilean Gonzalo Oyarzun Riveros joined the company. For international productions, the group is enlarged to include a pool of dancers and actors. In 2008, Dulce Compania received first place, and in 2010 second place in the German Karneval der Kulturen in Berlin, which was attended by an audience of 1 million people.
WEmplume is a street theater duet made up of two twin sisters. Their work has been classified as "urban animation." The duet has performed in their native Quebec and various venues around the world.
WGeneral Hershy Bar was a satirical character of the Vietnam War-era Anti-War protest movement, portrayed by William "Bill" Matons, in a parody of U.S. General Lewis B. Hershey, then Director of the Selective Service.
WThe Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF) is a free annual outdoor performing arts festival, which takes place across East and South East London (Greenwich) every June. GDIF was founded by its Artistic Director Bradley Hemmings as an independent festival in 1996 and is produced by the charitable organisation Greenwich+Docklands Festivals (GDF). The festival organises over 200 performances during 10 days, which are attended by over 80,000 people each year.
WRobert Jasper Grootveld was a Dutch artist, best known for his events on the Spui in Amsterdam. Grootveld's 'happenings' were a forerunner of the Provo movement, which he later joined.
WA monstration is a public performance similar to a demonstration, but intended as creative performance art, often parodying a serious demonstration.
WGregory Paul McLaren who goes by the name of Lucky Diamond Rich, is a New Zealand performance artist, street performer and international arts festival performer, whose act includes sword swallowing and juggling on a unicycle.
WRoyal de Luxe is a French mechanical marionette street theatre company. They were founded in 1979 in Aix-en-Provence by Jean-Luc Courcoult. After some years based in Toulouse, the company moved to Nantes in 1989. The company has performed in France, Belgium, England, Germany, Iceland, Chile, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands and Ireland.
WThe Škofja Loka Passion Play is the oldest play in Slovene. In its current form, it was a penitential Passion procession. It was written on the basis of an older tradition in 1715, with minor corrections until 1727, by Father Romuald, a Capuchin monk who lived for a period in the Škofja Loka Capuchin monastery in the town of Škofja Loka. The passion presents Biblical stories, particularly from the life of Jesus. It consists of 869 verses, written in the old Škofja Loka dialect. They are divided into 13 tableaux. It belongs to the Baroque period and represents the oldest preserved director's book in the world. The play's manuscript is kept by the Škofja Loka monastery.
WSpiral Q Puppet Theater is a puppet troupe that was founded in 1995 by Matthew "Mattyboy" Hart in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After traveling the country he was inspired by the street performance work of the Radical Faeries and the Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont. On his return to Philadelphia, Hart founded Spiral Q as a way to use his newfound interest in puppetry, street theatre and pageantry to promote social and political change. To this day, Spiral Q seeks to bring the storytelling techniques of giant puppetry, pageantry, and toy theater to the urban backdrop of Philadelphia.
WSpraoi is a festival of international street theatre and world music which takes place for three days each August in the Irish city of Waterford. The festival takes its name from the Gaelic word spraoi, or play. The Waterford Spraoi has taken place each summer since 1992 and is now the largest festival event in Waterford. The main activity is centred on two main stages located in the John Roberts Square and William Vincent Wallace Plaza where various acts have been hosted including the Royal Drummers of Burundi and the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, as well as more contemporary bands and musicians.
WJohnny Strange, nicknamed "the man with ears of steel", is an English world record breaking performance artist, producer and street performer based in London, England. He is known for performing daredevil stunts with a comedic twist.
WTeatro Instabile de Venexia is a musical street theater in gondolas with facade projections. It was founded in 2011 in Venice as "Tour de Scherxi" making part of the Carnival events official program. Artistic director and founder of Theater is Sergey Nikitin, European urban historian and activist. A show combines a trip in a gondola and a walking tour. The opera performances are staged in the gondolas as singers, musicians and spectators move along the channels. The architecture of Venice creates the operas scenography. Teatro Instabile productions are inspired by works of Rossini, Mozart and Ballets Russes of Sergey Diaghilev. For each carnival, the theater presents a new opera. In 2013 Teatro premiered “El Culo de Venexia”, the embodiment of the spirit of Venice, telling the story of a Venetian captain of Renaissance times rising from the dead. A mix of real history of the Republic and emblematic literary characters. Anecdotes, jokes, fantasies, absurdism, improvisations, playful eroticism – it is a dithyramb to Venice: truthiness and joie de vivre of la Serenissima". Masks and costumes are created by young artists and architects, last two times by Dasha Serebriakova.
WTerukkuttu is a Tamil street theatre form practised in Tamil Nadu state of India and Tamil-speaking regions of Sri Lanka. Terukuttu is a form of entertainment, a ritual, and a medium of social instruction. The terukkuttu plays various themes. One theme is from the Tamil language versions of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, focusing on the character Draupadi. The terms Terukkuttu and Kattaikkuttu are often used interchangeably in the modern times; however, historically the two terms appear to have distinguished, at least in certain villages, between two different kinds of performance: while Terukkuttu referred to mobile performances in a procession, Kattaikkuttu denotes overnight, narrative performances at a fixed performance space.
WThe Winchester Hat Fair is the UK's longest running festival of street theatre, comedy, and music which is held in Winchester, United Kingdom, always during the first weekend in July.
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