Theatre-in-the-round or arena theatre (also referred to as central staging) is any theatre space in which the audience surrounds the stage area. In 1947, Margo Jones established America's first professional theatre-in-the-round company when she opened her Theatre ’47 in Dallas.
As developed by Margo Jones, her theatre-in-the-round concept requires no stage curtain, little scenery and allows the audience to sit on all sides of the stage. That stage design was used by directors in later years for such well-known shows as the original stage production of Man of La Mancha and all plays staged at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre (demolished in the late 1960s), including Arthur Miller's autobiographical After the Fall. Such theatres had previously existed in colleges but not in professional spaces for almost a couple millennia. It is also a popular setup used in contemporary pop concerts in an arena or stadium setting.
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The stage itself in this arrangement is typically round, diamond, or triangular, with actors entering and exiting through the audience from different directions or from below the stage. Such a space is usually configured with the stage on an even level with or lowered below the audience in a "pit" or "arena" formation. This configuration lends itself to high-energy productions, and is especially favoured by producers of classical theatre. Theatre-in-the-round was common in ancient theatre, particularly that of Greece and Rome but was not widely explored again until the latter half of the 20th century; it has continued as a creative alternative to the more common Proscenium format.
Theatre-in-the-round presents problems since actors at all times have their back facing some members of the audience. However, it also allows for interesting and realistic staging. The configuration is also commonly employed when theatrical performances are presented in non-traditional spaces such as restaurants, public areas such as fairs or festivals, or street theatre. Special consideration needs to be taken in regard to the set design, so as not to obscure any audience member's view of the performance.
In Margo Jones's survey of theatre-in-the-round,[1] the first two sources of central staging in the United States she identified were the productions by Azubah Latham and Milton Smith at Columbia University dating from 1914, and T. Earl Pardoe's productions at Brigham Young University in 1922. In 1924, Gilmor Brown founded the Fairoaks Playbox in Pasadena, California, an important early practitioner of central staging in addition to other stage configurations that it pioneered in its advent of flexible staging.[2] As Indicated by Jones,[3] the centrally staged productions of the Fairoaks Playbox were followed approximately eight years later by the work of Glenn Hughes in his Seattle Penthouse.
The innovations of Margo Jones were an obvious influence on Albert McCleery when he created his Cameo Theater for television in 1950. Continuing until 1955, McCleery offered dramas seen against pure black backgrounds instead of walls of a set. This enabled cameras in the darkness to pick up shots from any position.
When an arena staging was conceived for the progressive-rock group Yes by their tour manager Jim Halley in the mid-1970s, it prompted a redesign of rock concerts and venue seating arrangements.
George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia is home to the largest Arena Stage Archive and contains material from the theatre's 50 year history. Included in the collection are photographs, production notebooks, scrapbooks, playbills, oral histories and handwritten correspondence. According to their website, the total volume is 260 cubic feet (7.4 m3) or 440 feet (130 m) linear and is housed in the Fenwick Library.