The 20th century and beyond
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Theatre design of the 20th century was the most varied in history. It was the first century in which virtually every theatrical design developed during the previous two millennia was available at the same time. After 250 years in which the box, pit, and gallery theatre, with its proscenium stage, dominated the art, there was widespread rebellion against it. As had happened during the Renaissance, a flood of new ideas was started by explorations of past practices. A revival of interest in Greek theatres inspired by archaeological excavations at the turn of the century led to numerous attempts to re-create Greek theatre spaces and ultimately inspired the German architect Walter Gropius to propose his “total theatre” (1927), which, had it been built, would have allowed a Greek theatre to be converted into the first complete theatre-in-the-round since medieval times. In 1939 the University of Washington in Seattle built the Penthouse Theater, which proved to be a more practical model for the numerous theatres-in-the-round that followed. At roughly the same time, a number of theatres designed to imitate Elizabethan theatres—such as the indoor Maddermarket Theatre (1921) in Norwich, Eng., and the open-air Old Globe Theatre (1935) in San Diego, Calif.—were built around the world, with more being constructed later in the century, including the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, Eng. (1986), the Globe Tokyo (1988), and Shakespeare’s Globe in London (1997). This vogue led to the proliferation of thrust stages throughout the world. In the third quarter of the 20th century, theatre designers focused their efforts on the creation of adaptable spaces that could easily be converted into at least two major theatre forms. At the turn of the 21st century, emphasis shifted to performing-arts complexes in which several different styles of theatre were incorporated.
Franklin J. Hildy The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica