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In The Wings Without A Cue: How Industrialization Upstaged America's Actors And How They Can Re-Take Center Stage, Jay H. Skriletz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The social, political, and economic forces of industrialization have transformed the actors' art, especially the relationship between the performer and the audience. When the consolidation of theatre ownership superceded the centuries old tradition of actormanagement, the transmutation of actors into commodities commenced. With the ascendancy of film as the dominant mode of theatrical production this transformation has accelerated until the creative interaction of living performers and audience is not merely an anomalous curiosity: it is nearly extinct. Industrialization has reduced the status of actors and their influence upon the workplace. Employment equilibrium has been distorted by the "star system" of …