Ever since the last remnant of the old platform disappeared, and the proscenium grew into the frame of a picture, the actors have been turned into a picturesque group in the foreground of a meretricious landscape-painting.
The proscenium was imported into England at the close of the seventeenth century, appropriate costumes a generation later.
The necessities of a builder have torn from us, all unwilling as we were, the apron, as the portion of the platform that came in front of the proscenium used to be called, and we must submit to the picture-making of the modern stage.
Communication with the front of the house is provided by a door in the proscenium wall opening into the stage door lobby, whence the outside of the building may be reached.
The entrance to the theatre, was by steps between the two ends of the proscenium and the two extremities of the semicircle.
Near the proscenium the steps on both sides are ruined, but in the other parts they are perfect.
The proscenium of the ancient theatres was a solid erection of an architectural design, not shifted and varied as our stage-scenes.
If theproscenium opening is too large, then the grand drapery can be lowered to within two or three feet of the top of the screens, and the side screens, behind the sides of the proscenium arch, brought closer together.
Another of the recent innovations which is of particular value to amateurs is the system by which the proscenium opening can be made large or small, according to the demands of the play.
This process makes, from the inside, a smaller proscenium arch.
Then the "grand drapery" above, which hangs down from behind the top of the proscenium arch, and which should be of the same color and material as the side screens, is lowered.
A sort of cyclorama may be constructed by using curtains hung at the back of the stage, upon which is thrown light from one place: behind the proscenium arch, from above, or from one of the sides.
Usually the proscenium looks like the following diagram.
The tier fronts, ceiling, and proscenium were of a light color, the aim having been to obtain a prevailing tint of ivory.
All the box and balcony fronts were covered with it, and strings of it hung at the sides of the proscenium opening from the top of the opening to the stage.
It forms a theatrical proscenium on a small scale.
Every seat in the narrow and high-pitched gallery, where at the sides the knees of one spectator would be on a level with the picture-hat of the spectator in the row beneath, had a perfect and entire view of the proscenium opening.
The proscenium is beautifully carved and frescoed, and is adorned with busts of the elder Booth and the proprietor of the theatre; and in the sides before the curtain are arranged six sumptuous private boxes.
This wall being the back of the scene, the space left between it and the chord of the semicircle (of the auditorium) which formed the proscenium is rather less than one would have supposed.
Before them is the vacant space which was filled by the stage, with the line of the proscenium distinct, marked by a deep groove impressed upon slabs of stone, which looks as if the bottom of a high screen had been intended to fit into it.
These "fires" were treated symbolically in the border at the top of the proscenium arch.
The curtain, seen through the proscenium arch and enlarged on page 108, is an interesting batik dyed in values of red, blue and purple.
The proscenium arch of this little stage was decorated for the study of the play "Restoring the Mourners.
The proscenium arch takes its place in the illusion, when the imagination is stimulated by color decoration.
As he stood, trying to remember at least one word of the carefully prepared effort, a man suddenly advanced from the rear of one of the proscenium boxes, leveled a pistol at the boy's head and fired.
I refer to the gentleman seated in the proscenium box on the other side.
Patti visited the opera that evening, the Mayor of the town conducting her down the passage way to her proscenium box amidst such a storm of applause as is rarely heard in an Opera-house.
The majority of my stockholders were careful to remain away, thus leaving a very bare appearance in the proscenium boxes.
The proscenium boxes reached 240 dollars premium for the five nights, on three of which I guaranteed that Gerster would sing, whilst Patti would sing on the other two.
His seat in that proscenium box had cost him more than a million; surely the least he was entitled to was the privilege of occupying it.
It was restful to the corpulent Hemerlingue, puffing in his prosceniumbox on the ground floor, as in a sty of cherry-colored satin.
In the theatre of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth, the proscenium arch--the frame of the picture--made pictorial realism theoretically possible.
The arches and walls of the proscenium are now a heap of ruins on the ground.
To lengthen it, the painter Henri Riviere stretched a napkin over the toy proscenium and passed in defile a procession of policemen cut in cardboard and silhouetted in shadow against the napkin.
From the shadows of the wings framed by the side of the proscenium in deep shadow against the flood of orange calcium light, the glitter of the scene upon the stage seemed even more brilliant than when viewed from the house.
This will conceal everything but theproscenium opening.
Then, with all the framework fastened together, hang draperies on each side and above and below the proscenium arch, as shown in chapter heading.
The Proscenium Arch is the arch or frame extending around the front of the stage of a theatre.
The Opera-house is rather small, but was beautifully decorated with garlands of artificial flowers hanging from the center of the dome down to the balconies, and from the proscenium boxes to the orchestra.
This time, too, the gentleman in the proscenium box gave the signal for the applause, but no one appeared to notice it.
The parquet and balcony were filled with students, and only one proscenium box was still empty.
No one noticed, however, that Luciola threw a look at the gentleman in the proscenium box, directing his attention to that occupied by Radetzky's adjutant.
A murmur ran through the theatre; the door of the proscenium box was opened and three persons entered it.
I have occupied the right hand proscenium box every Saturday matinee since the opening.
The director hurries down the centre aisle, the prompter's head appears at the proscenium arch.
As I folded the letter and replaced it in its cover, I recalled that Will had glanced towards the right hand proscenium box several times.
We had a red curtain across the back, bright yellow wings, red and yellow draperies around the proscenium arch, festoons of little flags strung across the top, and a large American flag draped centre back.
As Calyste looked about him during the first interlude, he saw in one of the two proscenium boxes on his side, and not ten steps from him, Madame de Rochefide.
As he left the door of the orchestra stalls, he saw the door of the proscenium box half-open, and his feet took him there in spite of his will.
During the musical intermezzo that followed, the lower proscenium box was vacated and in the first balcony one among a crowd of students rose and made his way up the aisle.
The childish voice sustained the simple melody perfectly, and it was evident when the little girl began the second verse that she was singing wholly to please herself and some one in a proscenium box.
He lifted his hat in apology, and recognized one of them as the occupant of the proscenium box, the gentleman who had given the roses to the little singer.
